Sterling D. Allan writes "After 10 years of prototyping, wind tunnel testing, patenting, and tweaking, Ron Taylor of Cheyenne (windy) Wyoming is ready to take his vertical axis wind turbine into commercial production. Design creates pull on the back side contributing to 40%+ wind conversion efficiencies. Because it spins at wind speed, it doesn't kill birds, and it runs more quietly. It also doesn't need to be installed as high, and it can withstand significantly higher winds (can generate in winds up to 70 mph, compared to ~54 mph tops for propeller designs). Generating costs estimated at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, putting it in the lead pocket-book-wise not just of wind and solar, but of conventional power as well. Production prototype completion expected in 5-7 months." Vertical Axis Wind Turbine With Push and Pull Log in/Create an Account | Top | 341 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 341 comments 0: 325 comments 1: 267 comments 2: 179 comments 3: 65 comments 4: 34 comments 5: 20 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful) by utexaspunk (527541) on Tuesday November 08, @07:40AM (#13977800) ...but I don't take anything "Open Source Energy News" posts seriously anymore. It seems like every post that comes from them is a crackpot. [ Reply to ThisRe:Sorry... by evil-osm (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @07:45AMRe:Sorry... by Mr. Underbridge (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:51AMRe:Sorry... by Silver Sloth (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:54AMRe:Sorry... by tylernt (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:41AMRe:Sorry... by jaylene_slide (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:46PMRe:Sorry... by tylernt (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @07:06PMRe:Sorry... by jaylene_slide (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:35PMRe:Sorry... by nebkor (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @05:21PMRe:Sorry... by tylernt (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:09PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Sorry... by torpor (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:13AMRe:Sorry... by ozbon (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @10:29AMRe:Sorry... by tgd (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @08:20AM Re:Sorry... (Score:5, Interesting) by utexaspunk (527541) on Tuesday November 08, @10:07AM (#13978616) I think it's more likely that "Sterling Alan" is paying /. to post stories that he writes [slashdot.org]. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Sorry... by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:06PMRe:Sorry... by utexaspunk (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @03:09PMRe:Sorry... by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @05:26PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Sorry... by phaggood (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:25AMRe:Sorry... by Lije Baley (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:21PMRe:Sorry... by Gridpoet (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:37PMMore Quiet? by Chapter80 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:32AMRe:More Quiet? by whmac33 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:31AMRe:More Quiet? by itchy92 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @11:12AM Re:Sorry... (Score:4, Insightful) by zippthorne (748122) <zipp-post@NoSPaM.usa.net> on Tuesday November 08, @09:33AM (#13978367) How is this open source? Pictures are not shown because it is patent pending and every other paragraph mentions something about the patents, at one point proudly mentioning that they are sufficiently broad to make an attorney happy (because they'll mean lots of work for the attorney?).But my question is, if it has a patent pending, why don't they publish? I thought that the whole reason for patents was to encourage people to publish their inventions. If the patent is pending, what's the risk? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Sorry... by Sockatume (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:49AMRe:Sorry... by Intron (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:55AMPicked up by mainstream press by sterlingda (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:33AMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by utexaspunk (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @10:55AMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by sterlingda (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:36PMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by utexaspunk (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @04:38PMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by sterlingda (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @07:40PMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by nmos (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @11:11AMRe:Picked up by mainstream press by sterlingda (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:42PM3 replies beneath your current threshold. Doesn't kill birds? (Score:1) by Killjoy_NL (719667) <palli.stc-r@nl> on Tuesday November 08, @07:44AM (#13977812) I think that if a bird gets caught in there, he can still be killed easily? [ Reply to ThisRe:Doesn't kill birds? by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:52AMRe:Doesn't kill birds? by legirons (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:54PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Doesn't kill birds? by tabrnaker (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:51PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Doesn't kill birds? by LarsWestergren (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:52AM Uses up the wind (Score:5, Funny) by backslashdot (95548) on Tuesday November 08, @07:53AM (#13977861) Yes, and even worse, it uses up the wind. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Uses up the wind by Gadgetfreak (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @08:50AMRe:Uses up the wind by superbondbond (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @09:31AMAs Silly as that sounds... by SerpentMage (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @09:59AMRe:As Silly as that sounds... by robertjw (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:23AMRe:As Silly as that sounds... by StikyPad (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:50PMRe:Uses up the wind by xs650 (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @10:48AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Birds... (Score:5, Interesting) by Kadin2048 (468275) <kadin2048@@@mac...com> on Tuesday November 08, @08:01AM (#13977892) I'll be honest, I really have to wonder about the whole windmills-killing-birds business. It always gets dragged up, but does anyone really know how many birds those propellers actually kill? I'm willing to bet it's very low; I also suspect way more birds are killed by flying into vehicles on the highway, or into the sides of highrise buildings (I had one kamikaze into my house last week, and that's not even a high rise).The whole bird thing sounds like a convenient excuse invented by people who really oppose windmills because of noise or land use issues, but want a fuzzier, more PR-friendly excuse. The kill zone on a windmill is basically going to be the circle described by the rotor tips as they go through the air, so it's not a huge zone (as you get towards the center they're not moving as fast, tangentially) and at any given time it's not as if just flying into that ring would result in death, you'd have to be at a point at the particular moment in time when the blade moved through it. Last time I checked, birds don't hover, so you have two moving objects that would have to compete against some long odds to end up in the same place at the same time. Also, the turbines are noisy as hell -- something which is a legitimate criticism -- and I find it hard to imagine that birds wouldn't be scared off by the sound, air currents, and motion. (Actually they wouldn't make a bad large-scale scarecrow over farmland...)Call me overly cynical but I find that particular objection dubious. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Birds... (Score:5, Informative) by Chris Burke (6130) on Tuesday November 08, @08:42AM (#13978067) (http://slashdot.org/) It always gets dragged up, but does anyone really know how many birds those propellers actually kill? I'm willing to bet it's very low; I also suspect way more birds are killed by flying into vehicles on the highway, or into the sides of highrise buildings (I had one kamikaze into my house last week, and that's not even a high rise).If you google for Altamont Pass, you will find reports of what is apparently the most deadly wind farm for raptors in the U.S., and kills about 800-1300 birds of prey a year. It's the farm's location in this pass, a migration path for other birds which makes it a great home for many raptors such as golden eagles, that makes it high risk. It's the small size, tight placement, and old design of the turbines that turns that risk into actual dead birds.Your intuition is correct here, in that this is a tiny amount compared to the number of birds that crash into windows of buildings in your average city. On a per-turbine basis, cell phone towers kill more birds.However, many people have taken the issue seriously (the makers of the Altamont Pass turbines were taken to court to force them to reduce the danger of their farms to birds), people like my father who as a bird watcher and conservationist is most concerned about predator populations due to their important role at the top of the food chain. It turns out that these concerns are being addressed, and newer turbines are much less dangerous to birds, in particular raptors. New designs discourage perching on the supports (electrocution of perching birds being a problem apparently), and larger turbines with commensurately slower blades, have proven to reduce bird fatalities.This is an issue I care about, loving as I do large animals that eat other animals, and I feel it is being duley considered and addressed. Wind farms do less damage to the environment than any other form of power generation other than solar, and kill fewer birds than the windowed office building that would be built to house the adiminstration for any form of power plant. That's no reason not to pressure the makers of the farms to continue to address bird deaths by improving their turbines, but it's also no reason to discourage the construction of wind farms. People who are against wind farms due to bird deaths have in my experience fallen into two categories: concerned environmentalists who aren't aware of the scope of the problem, and industrialists who just want to have something to put in the "negatives of alternative energy" column to line up with "releases more radiation than Three Mile Island on a normal day of operation" in the "negatives of coal" column so they'll both seem equally bad. [ Reply to This | Parent More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds (Score:5, Informative) by DFJA (680282) on Tuesday November 08, @09:14AM (#13978233) The turbines in Altamont Pass are known to kill quite a lot of birds, but this is partly because of their location in a bird migration path, and partly due to their design. The turbines there are of quite old designs, and in particular they are fairly small and fast rotating. Birds tend to have a hard time working out where they can and can't fly, and often get it wrong.Modern turbine designs have taken these problems (and many others) into account and now kill very few birds - probably fewer than are killed by flying into electricity pylons. The main design changes are that they are much larger and slower rotating, so birds tend to judge the motion correctly and avoid them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Altamont Pass turbines are painted grey to reduce their visual impact against the sky, which also reduces their visibility to birds. Modern ones tend to be painted white, which makes them more visible.On a recent visit to Denmark I was very impressed by the size and sheer number of turbines, turning gracefully, slowly and fairly unobtrusively. Occasionally there would be a small, faster-rotating one of an older design. These were noticeably more distracting and attention-grabbing - particularly in the peripheral vision (which after all is designed to look for rapid movement from predators). It's these older designs that have lead to most of the complaints from local residents, and understandably so.Give me a modern turbine at the bottom of my garden any day - they are also virtually silent unlike their older cousins. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by MtViewGuy (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:52AMRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by flyinwhitey (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:39AMThe Environut-Tape Letters by iamlucky13 (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @01:21PMLNG worst case. by Eric S. Smith (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @01:46PMRe:LNG worst case. by flyinwhitey (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:52PMRe:LNG worst case. by Eric S. Smith (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:32PMRe:LNG worst case. by StikyPad (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:57PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.sails != visual pollution by drjzzz (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @12:56PMRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by fatcatman (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @03:10PMRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by MtViewGuy (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @05:03PMRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by Tipa (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @11:42AMRe:More modern turbines (almost) don't kill birds by DFJA (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:12PMRe:Birds... by Dan Ost (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:24AMRe:Birds... by Intron (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:59AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Birds... by squoozer (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:22AMThis is a serious issue... by mdielmann (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:23AMRe:This is a serious issue... by operagost (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:10PM Birds are the tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Funny) by Dr. Cody (554864) on Tuesday November 08, @11:04AM (#13979103) When I was in the Netherlands last year, I toured a large wind park north of Groningen. There, under the turbines, I saw a total of:1 dead bird1 dead sheepFrom this, we can deduce that wind turbines are equally as deadly to sheep as they are to birds. The 800-1300 sheep killed annually must make the Altamont Pass a bloodbath of truely horrific proportions.But seriously, folks...The Altamont Pass is a disaster which was produced by irresponsible economic incentives of the time which put up low quality turbines willy-nilly throughout California. Add to that the fact that many of Altamont Pass's are placed on angle-iron framework towers. These make them ideal nesting grounds--well, if one ignores the 30 m food processor out front. Modern towers take great care in leaving no place for avian habitation.This park's would otherwise be just a regional problem, but, thanks to more animal-focused environmental groups, and the tabloids who eat up their press releases, that wind park is biting us over here in Europe in the ass.Altamont Pass is, however, the only wind park on earth with this level of environmental impact. Nothing comes close in these regards. A substantially larger off-shore wind park off the coast of Denmark (Knoetby, I think) actually showed that the birds weren't scared off, but instead kept a distance of about 150 m from the equipment. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Birds are the tip of the iceberg by Chris Burke (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @11:49AMRe:Birds... by vertinox (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:09PMRe:Birds... by Phreakiture (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:14AMRe:Birds... by Merkuri22 (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:16AMRe:Birds... by Asic Eng (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:31PM Birds don't hover but bats do... (Score:5, Informative) by lonely (32990) on Tuesday November 08, @09:17AM (#13978256) Hi,I was at the UK national Bat conference this years and there were a couple of presentations on bat kills around wind turbines. It turns out that the strange noised attrach insects and therefore bats. Certain wind farms in the use, I forget which, are on migration paths for bats. There is a suggestion that they turn off the wind turbines come migration session.Since bats are a key part of bug control, particularly in the US, you might want to think about protecting them,Lonely [ Reply to This | Parent"Birds don't hover"? by maynard (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @11:35AMRe:Birds don't hover but bats do... by GreekPimpSlap (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:33PM Re:Birds... (Score:4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08, @09:25AM (#13978314) The 1000 or so wind turbines on the North Sea coast of Germany near Holtgast have driven the water birds completely out of the area. The problem was not strikes, but the noise and perhaps visual disorientation. In any event over the last 10 years since the installation of the turbines the birds have abandoned the area.There is a recent NPR story on this here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4975147 [npr.org] [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Birds... by DeputySpade (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @03:01PMRe:Birds... by pla (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @09:37AMRe:Birds... by theJML (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:15AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Ground temperature and humidity by Sir_Eptishous (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @12:22PMRe:Birds...Your instincts are correct by brandido (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:28PMRe:Birds... by bleckywelcky (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:42PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:Doesn't kill birds? by slamkoder (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @08:09AMDarwin at work by 6Yankee (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:07AMVaporware kills bugs dead by Sir_Eptishous (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @12:16PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Could be useful for microgrids (Score:5, Informative) by Colonel Sponsz (768423) on Tuesday November 08, @07:45AM (#13977816) While vertical axis wind generators aren't new - the Soviets utilized vertical designs for the most part - this design is. Wind power usually isn't practical or environmental for large-scale deployment (land usage/kW is too high), and I expect this design won't change that, but it could make wind an even better choice for microgrids [wikipedia.org].Shame the article reads like Yet Another Slashvertisment (someone wants venture capital I guess) - I'd like some more details. [ Reply to This Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:5, Informative) by otter42 (190544) on Tuesday November 08, @07:56AM (#13977875) (http://eissq.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 08, @04:00PM) This design isn't new. It's bunk. As he describes it, it's a Savonius windmill, which is nothing if not inefficient.Although your comments about microgrids are very apt. And since what we truly need in this world are microgrids (encourage conservation of energy, reduce fossil fuel use, provide energy to Africa), I'm very excited about wind's possibilities in this arena.(Which is why I just started a PhD. in solar and wind microgeneration cells.) [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:4, Interesting) by Kadin2048 (468275) <kadin2048@@@mac...com> on Tuesday November 08, @08:17AM (#13977956) Thanks for the info. I had never heard of Savonius windmills before -- or at least not heard the name. I've actually seen one before though, but not for any practical purpose: one of those annoying moving-lawn-ornament type things.In case anyone else is interested in what a Savonius windmill is, there's a page with a little simulation of one here [picoturbine.com]. I think they're selling something (model turbines maybe?) although I didn't really check it out.I have to wonder though whether one of these is really as efficent as a propeller-type windmill, given that a propeller type one can alter its blade pitch and keep the rotational speed relatively constant in different wind speeds. Is there a way to do that with a Savonius design? It doesn't seem like the airfoils are really anything that you could easily change in flight.I'm not sure if it's true, but I once heard an interesting factoid about Dutch-style propeller windmills, and how they were among the first mechanical devices to implement a "feedback loop"; you have a tail rotor mounted perpendicular to the main rotor, which drives the mechanism that orients the windmill. If the wind isn't blowing at the mill directly from the front, it causes the small rotor to turn, turning the mill into the wind. When the mill is pointing in the right direction, there's no wind on the small rotor, so it stops. Pretty brilliant, for the 17th or 18th century. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Could be useful for microgrids by otter42 (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @08:32AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:4, Insightful) by BlowChunx (168122) on Tuesday November 08, @08:34AM (#13978037) Just looking at the prototype from the article, it looks to me like they have "inlet guid vanes" which would direct the incoming air so that it hits the rotor blades at the correct angle, so there would be no need for variable angle of attack (as there is with propellers...). [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08, @09:37AM (#13978385) There have been wild claims for savonious rotors for many years. One, in Mother Earth News back around 1976 or thereabouts claimed 6 kw output for a machine made of two split oil drums, around 3 feet in diameter and 6 feet tall -- that's 18 square feet of frontal area. Power goes with the dimension squared (for circular frontal area) and speed cubed, so, double the dimension (radius, diameter), you see 4 * the area and thus 4 * the power available. Double the speed and you see 8 * the power available, all given some constant (never happens) coefficient of conversion.Roughly, power = 1/2 * rho * v^3 * a * k * cwhere rho is mass density of air, v is windspeed, a is area, and k converts all units to power units. If you use square feet and feet per second as units, and 0.00238 slugs/ft^3, then you need to know that 550 ft-lbs/second will convert to horsepower. "c" is the conversion coefficient, typically around 0.25 for a good bladed rotor, probably closer to 0.1 for a savonious. I have built and seen rotors that did better than 0.3. Factor in loss due to generator power conversion, transmission line losses, etc, and things go downhill from there.In general, there is a Betz limit that says, mathematically, that the most you can ever harness from a fluid flow such as wind is 59%, though there are suspected ways around that. When these people deride "tip speed ratio" they are giving up the fact that, when you can travel faster than the wind, as does the outer regions of a bladed turbine, you have the opportunity to generate more power due to the lift-to-drag ratio of high aspect ratio blades (wings) providing lots more torque than you would get by mulling along at around the same speed as the wind. Take a look at those multibladed farm water pumpers. They have a tip speed ratio rarely greater than one, and their conversion efficiency is fairly low. They're good for high starting torque to lift water. In electrical generation, you don't worry about starting torque because generators don't "kick in" till you're flying fairly fast. There is one aspect to the claims in the granted patent: he adds external "airfoils" to direct more wind into the central sevonious rotor, speaking of which, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but he may miss one nice point about generalized savonious rotors: the gap in the middle. If he closed that, he loses a lot due to the "airfoil" effect of the retreating (driving) blade directing some of the airflow through the gap into the advancing (dragging) blade (cup if you like).In some sense, what he claims in his patent is well known in prior art. It's a lot like those dumbass patents the USPTO is granting these days for stuff like "one click", or "shopping carts" -- those folks in the USPTO never go outside and smell the roses. The patent presently granted can be stomped all over with photos from even ths us department of energy archives.Dumb stuff like this comes along all the time. I don't think this is the work of a charlatan; rather, it really appears to be the work of an honest, but not well educated fellow. Clever, but not original or novel (novel to him, not to the rest of the world). Too bad every time someone comes along with a perpetual motion machine or something close (really cheap energy), they have to slam everything else that's already out there.An earlier poster here commented on the apparent low quality of the website that printed the press release. Too bad about that. I'm reminded of the somewhat childish but good hearted efforts, long before the web, in the late 70's following the huge gas pump crisis in the U.S. Everybody and his uncle started printing journals, whatever, including The Mother Earth News. Some of it was good, some of it was rubbish, but we all had a ton of fun doing it. Looks like what goes around comes around. Again.Jack Park [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Itchy Rich (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:49AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Could be useful for microgrids by jkantola (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @09:58AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by flink (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:18AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by wiredlogic (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:21PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by otter42 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:23AM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:Could be useful for microgrids by Colonel Sponsz (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:56AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by QMO (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:26AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by otter42 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:20AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Fordiman (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:07AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by tokuchan (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:33AM Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:4, Informative) by brentcastle (807566) on Tuesday November 08, @12:19PM (#13979903) (http://www.brentcastle.com/) Yeah, I was quite shocked to see this. Even more shocked to see that he has patents for it. I worked on a vawt for awhile. There are about a 1000 different variations online by diy'ers. Savonius originally patented something that looks essentially identical to this device in the 20s! From my experience its great in areas where you have a low constant wind. Tip speed sucks, but you can get more torque with this device. It works great in an area with lots of flat like where I live (Indiana). I believe it was originally designed to be used to grind grain on farms. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Bloater (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @03:25PM"Windspinners" by richyoung (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @05:22PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by SlashSquatch (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @09:09AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Could be useful for microgrids by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:05AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by cliffski (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:07AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by NardofDoom (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:15AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Neck_of_the_Woods (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @10:29AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by zuzulo (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @06:09PM Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:5, Informative) by Lumpy (12016) on Tuesday November 08, @08:40AM (#13978057) (http://timgray.blogspot.com/) yes and no. the best wind generator is the vertical axis generator. it removes a significant amount of complexity and can be easily made from junk lying around most farms. 55 gallon drums cut in 1/2 make the blades easily(plastic ones are best) and a belt/pulley system to a car alternator makes an inefficient version, you can make a highly efficient version that will produce usable power at only 6-8mph winds if you make your own coil pack and greater your permanent magnet stators with the surplus high power jobbies available most anyplace.I helped erect one in northern Michigan, it can generate 106 watts in the calm days from the natural constant wind going up their hill and generated almost 1.8Kw peak during a storm before it threw the belt off.no complex wiring to couple a spinnable generator to the power coming down, dirt simple and works at only 40 feet off the ground. if you paint them white they look pretty nice and can be built in a day if you don t build the alternator yourself.personally I am surprised there are not more of them compared to the highly complex spinning blade setup that must pivot to follow the wind.Who cares if the more complex is more efficient, if I can build 20 of mine for the price and effort of 1 typical wind generator I'll end up ahead. [ Reply to This | ParentScaling problems by gr8_phk (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:48AM Re:Scaling problems (Score:5, Informative) by Lumpy (12016) on Tuesday November 08, @10:09AM (#13978633) (http://timgray.blogspot.com/) it scales vertically. we built one with 6 55 gallon drums. 3 on the lower tier 3 on the upper tier cut in a way to have 6 blades per tier. all attached to the central shaft using a thrust bearing at the top and botton and then to a pulley that turns the rotor on a home built alternator at 3 times the rpm that the windmill is spinning at.works great. put another next to it and now I get 2X the power generating capacity. add 3 I get 3 times the power generating capacity. that's the neat part 1 windmill does not slow down all the wind and scaling up works perfectly when you think of it in a multiples instead of one giant windmill.a small village trying to be seld sustaining could create a farm of these and generate power. wind is not the only source you need, you have to couple it with solar. because the days it's not windy it's usually very sunny. and all of it needsto go into a storage system.Typically simpler = better. because you can make more of them to compensate for the lack of efficiency that highly complex may or may not give you.that's the problem with alternative energy, too many people make it complex as hell and scares the realy users away from it. Anyone can create a hang out your window solar heat collector that works fantastically well for about $19.00 in parts and a little time gluing, nailing and painting. But you only see the hyper expensive requires engineers to install systems advertised or talked about. same as solar electricity. you can buy your solar cells for pretty darn cheap, you do not have to pay $5000.00 per panel for new state of the art stuff.Same as you do not need to be a aeronautical engineer and able to carve an airfoil propeller to make a good working windmill. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Scaling problems by soapee01 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @12:46PMRe:Scaling problems by jusdisgi (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:00PMOnly somewhat by bluGill (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @03:24PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Could be useful for microgrids by DigiShaman (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:45PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by drinkypoo (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @01:20PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by DigiShaman (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:42PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Re:Could be useful for microgrids (Score:5, Informative) by Clueless Nick (883532) on Tuesday November 08, @08:46AM (#13978085) Well, here's blowing a razberry at you, kid. Are you a votary of the oil lobby?Land usage / kW for wind turbines is NOT too high. You only actually need half an acre/MW. The rest of the land is for wind easement, and you can carry on farming/horticulture without much interruption on it. And this is true only for Europe and N. America.In developing countries, windy land is mostly arid, mountainous, or coastal - nothing much grows there.Large scale wind developments are economically viable. Wind gets the minimal of governmental support, and look at how it's growing. Lots of free tools are available on the web to see it for yourself - various HAWT models, various sites around the world.Large scale developments starting from 50 MW parks or higher can enable the manufacturer/service providers to provide efficient erection and commissioning services, on-site round-the-clock Operation and Maintenance services, SCADA operation and data communication to the investor/utility, etc.Distributed development of wind power projects over geographically distant areas can theoretically reduce intermittency, which is the usual FUD against wind these days. Avian kills are another FUD: what is the extent of ecological damage being caused by your conventional power plants? What is the submergence being caused by hydropower?About TFA, well, there is a huge amount of development taking place in both HAWT and VAWT technologies, with competition between generator and/or drivetrain philosophies. /. can randomly mention anything - maybe somebody is fishing for funny comments.HAWTs have a distinct advantage of exploiting the swept area and the power law index by increasing rotor diameters (blade lengths). VAWTs may evolve into simple designs without much need for regulation - there are some that offer inbuilt speed regulation by design. They can generate at any wind speed that the supporting structure can withstand. However, I am yet to see VAWTs catching up with HAWTs having rated capacities of decade-old standards.Some of the VAWTs of the type in TFA can be well suited for use in defence installations - I've myself suggested one design to a defence research official for distributed, arctic-condition, radar/thermal/sonic neutral generation needs at the world's highest battlefield. I don't know if they have researched it further, but they won't tell :-)-cluelessDisclaimer: I work for a wind turbine manufacturer. However, I have stayed with them because I like the industry. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Dan Ost (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @09:32AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by ahem (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:49AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Chris Burke (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @12:06PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by blincoln (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @06:17PMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by hador_nyc (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:47AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Could be useful for microgrids by Anonymous Writer (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @09:49AMRe:Could be useful for microgrids by Fordiman (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:02AMre small CVTs, mod parent up! by Myself (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:52AM Safer to birds? (Score:2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08, @07:45AM (#13977820) "Because it spins at wind speed, it doesn't kill birds..."Birds don't move at wind speed. Sounds like a recipe for a collision! [ Reply to This Worse than that (Score:5, Insightful) by ishmaelflood (643277) on Tuesday November 08, @07:54AM (#13977867) if the downwind blade is travelling at windspeed, it is generating no force (and admittedly killing no birds who are flying with the wind, ie balloons). But, that implies that the upwind blade is travelling at twice the windspeed, relative to the wind.So that little argument is rubbish.Actually, the whole article is not too bad overall, we certainly see worse in real papers (eg the Guardian's coverage of that hydrogen atom fraud). [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Worse than that by The Philosophers Cat (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:30AMRe:Worse than that by Fordiman (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @11:11AMRe:Worse than that by pintpusher (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @01:02PMRe:Safer to birds? by Rinnt (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @07:55AMRe:Safer to birds? by thevoice99 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @08:17AMRe:Safer to birds? by otter42 (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @09:16AMRe:Safer to birds? by Epistax (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @08:58AMRe:Safer to birds? by bruce_the_moose (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @09:51AMFuck the birds by lowell (Score:1) Tuesday November 08, @10:31AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Directionless (Score:4, Informative) by LarsWestergren (9033) on Tuesday November 08, @07:45AM (#13977821) (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/) Another obvious advantage of this design is that unlike a propeller, you don't have to turn them around when the direction of the wind changes...A couple of years ago I talked with an engineer friend about this when we got on the subject of alternative energy. This isn't a new idea of course, variations have been used above chimneys [fluesystems.com] for a long time for instance. He told me then about the large number of advantages to this design. I don't remember if I asked him the question that pops up in my head now - why did the propeller design become the norm? [ Reply to ThisRe:Directionless by gnu-generation-one (Score:3) Tuesday November 08, @07:59AM Propeller design as the norm (Score:4, Informative) by jurt1235 (834677) on Tuesday November 08, @07:59AM (#13977884) (http://www.hipersonik.com/) That is because airospace engineers are the main designers of these kind of machines. They know propellers, have all the systems to calculate what is possible with it, and through old designs of windmills (from 1400AD or even earlier) the principles pretty much stayed the same. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Propeller design as the norm (Score:4, Informative) by Dan Ost (415913) on Tuesday November 08, @09:42AM (#13978418) What you've said is so wrong, it's painful.Modern propeller turbines use lift to generate torque and efficiency scales up with propeller length. Verticle turbines which use drag (as the one in the article does) are not as efficienct to begin with, and their efficiency does not scale as you make them bigger. This is why the engineers don't make modern large scale wind turbines out of them.Old windmills used wind drag to generate torque. Modern wind turbines use lift to generate torque. Saying the principles are the same is like comparing a glider to fighter jet. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Propeller design as the norm by ceoyoyo (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @02:13PMRe:Propeller design as the norm by Dan Ost (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @03:55PMRe:Propeller design as the norm by ceoyoyo (Score:2) Tuesday November 08, @05:21PM Re:Directionless (Score:5, Informative)