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Comment by meander_water | Hacker News Reader

> “Improving the power coefficient of a large wind turbine by just 1% has significant impacts on the energy production of a turbine, and that translates towards the other coefficients that we derived relations for,” she said. "A 1% improvement in power coefficient could notably increase a turbine’s energy output, potentially powering an entire neighborhood."

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And finding a gold bar in my backyard would have significant impacts on my bank account.

I don't see a claim that there is an improvement.

This reminds me of the old story about being able to capture just 1% of a market to create a successful startup and how you always have to remember, there are numbers less than 1.

OP claims this was not written in the paper because it was speculative, not quantitative. Nowhere in the paper did she ever claim to have made an x% improvement over the original work. Not making such claim in the paper itself is a testimony on how the scientific method should be applied. Of course anyone would hope to make a difference in the world, of wind turbine blades, and her comment does just that.

Its just classic HN reductionalism to reduce certain unverifiable claims down to its core principle.

some more equally valid remarks:

"Moving wind turbines just 50km closer to power consumers would decrease transmission loss by .5%"

"Building 102 wind turbines would be a 2% increase over the planned 100"

This is exactly the type of content I love to hate on HN

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