It’s been a queitly held interest of mine, at least in the field of wind energy, but I always felt that the vertical axis wind turbine’s day would come. Yes these turbines are less efficient than the standard propeller bladed turbines we see sprouting up on many hilly locations, but they work with wind from any direction without need to turn themselves into the wind like prop based units. And as exibited by Dr. Bill Becker with his Aerotecture aeroturbine, they can operate in any wind strenght and self govern without the need for any braking mechanism (cost/complexity issues) or turning out of the wind (reduced productive time). They also remind me of the “sail” on Kevin Costner’s boat in Waterworld which looked very cool – the sail that is, not the film.
An article on the Beeb’s website now describes how Caltech is using these vertical axis turbines to generate greater energy yields than when using standard prop type turbines. They speak about schooling fish and turbulence – basically you can place these turbines more densely on a given size of land plot in comparison to prop bladed turbines as they are unaffected by the turbulence which governs how far apart prop based turbines must be placed, thereby increasing the yield per given plot of land by up to 10 times. Simples.
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