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by throwaway24124 904 days ago
Not a dumb question, I’m assuming it’s been treated with flame-retardant chemicals, but I’m surprised that it’s fireproof-ness wasn’t addressed in the article.
1 comments

Since they are the tallest thing around, wind turbine blades get struck by lightning regularly. Fiberglas is an insulator. Aluminum is a good conductor. But carbon fiber is a resistor. Carbon fiber blades have to have embedded conductors to prevent from being blown up by lightning strikes. So there's a layer of aluminum foil or similar to provide a low-resistance discharge path.

Same problem as carbon-fiber aircraft, with similar solutions.