Off Topic Oddity

[Bear]

I was driving to my mothers house the other day and decided to go by way of the Houston Ship Channel over the Loop 610 bridge.  Normally when I go this way I like to look off to the left from the left (Fast) lane at the Car terminal where there are literally thousands of cars that have been imported that will be shipped around the country.  The bridge is so wide you can't see both sides from that lane.  This time I was in the right lane and noticed on the north side of the bridge some imported metal structures.  This peek my curiosity so I stayed in that lane till I could get a better look.  What I say was blades to a fan? about 250-300 feet long bound in groups of 4.  There were three groups.  I looked several times and had my wife confirm what I was seeing.  Put together these fans would be as big as a city block already nearly as big as a football field without assembly.

Does anyone have an idea what such a huge fan would be for?

The Bear Family

[Ray]

To blow some of the hot air out of congress?


 

[catz]

I think those fans are not big enough! Good thought though!!!

[Jeff S]

Anybody ever driven from the LA area to Palm Springs? You pass a huge wind farm with something like 3500 turbine generators. http://photo.net/photo/pcd0278/wind-farm-30.tcl My plant manager, a (legal) immigrant from Mexico, takes his family and other visitors from Mexico and tells them, "See we Americans are so rich, we can afford big fans to cool off the desert!"

- Jeff

[Bear]

You mention Mexico and I was thinking it might have something to do with Mexico.  A few years back I read an article about Mexico City's pollution problem and how it was caused by it location.  Mexico City was built in a valley completely surrounded by mountains (I've never been there so I am not sure of that but repeating what I read).  The pollution can't escape because of those high peaks and common weather patterns.  The magazine was repeating a proposing to build giant fans on both sides of Mexico City in the upper elevations to both blow and suck air across Mexico City thus pulling out the pollution?  In that article it mentioned the fans would have to be the size of a city block and would take at least a hundred.

I actually thought the idea was pretty ignorant but I've seen liberal completely drain a sea so they could irrigate crop land with salt water!  So...?

I am not kidding when I say these things are as big as a city block when put together.  I went back and looked twice.  And they are much bigger that the props used on Wind Farm Generators and have a completely different configuration.  I wish I could take pictures but its illegal to stop on the bridge.  I'll try to get my wife to take some pictures this weekend as we drive by and post one or two.  No one i know has a clue what they are for.

The Bear Family