Harmony Turbines | The Perfect Small Scale Wind Turbine?

Pulling Power from the Sky: The Story of Makani [Feature Film]

Solid State Wind Energy Generator. A Revolutionary Device

In this video, we are going to look at Solid State Wind Energy Generators. These devices create electricity and have no moving parts. Given that most of the maintenance costs in traditional wind turbines are because of moving parts, from gearbox to blades, this can be a breakthrough development.

https://newatlas.com/ewicon-bladeless-wind-turbine/26907/

Where most wind turbines generate electricity through mechanical energy, the EWICON (short for Electrostatic WInd energy CONvertor) creates potential energy with charged particles – in this case, water droplets. The current design consists of a steel frame holding a series of insulated tubes arranged horizontally. Each tube contains several electrodes and nozzles, which continually release positively-charged water particles into the air. As the particles are blown away, the voltage of the device changes and creates an electric field, which can be transferred to the grid for everyday use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaneless_ion_wind_generator

Vortex Bladeless: a wind generator without blades Wind energy without blades

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vortex-bladeless-a-wind-generator-without-blades--3#/

Chanel's Paris fashion week

http://collagiscope.blogspot.com/2012/10/paris-fashion-week-chanel-and-wind.html

Continent’s Tallest Approved Structure to Produce Solar-Wind Energy Hybrid at U.S.-Mexican Border

http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/02/tallest-structure-solar-wind-u-s-mexican-border

This thing is almost designed to discredit green energy.  Spraying fresh clean water in a dessert state where clean water is at a premium is just stupid.

This project will burn 1.5 billion dollars of public money building a massive building only to create water shortages.

Just where is this water going to come from?  Green projects need to generate water and power, not consume them.

If they could do this with sea water, great, but this is not the case.


“A series of pumps deliver water to the Tower’s injection system at the top where a fine mist is cast across the entire opening. The water introduced by the injection system then evaporates and is absorbed by hot dry air which has been heated by the solar rays of the sun. As a result, the air becomes cooler, denser and heavier than the outside warmer air, and falls through the cylinder at speeds up to and in excess of 50 mph. This air is then diverted into wind tunnels surrounding the base of the Tower where turbines inside the tunnels power generators to produce electricity.

Festo - Wing Turbines Keep Working In The Gentlest Breeze

For those who don't know Festo, they have done a number of biologically inspired robots.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/04/hypnotic-flapping-wing-turbines-keep-working-in-the-gentlest-breeze/



Self-optimizing, highly efficient and inspired by bird flight: with the
DualWingGenerator, Festo has developed an extraordinary technology platform
that uses two pairs of opposing wings to generate power.

Find out more: http://bit.ly/1jPuQrZ

http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/13707.htm

Looks a whole lot like:
Reciprocating wind generator - Gene R. Kelley, of Santa Barbara’s

http://independent.com/news/2007/jul/19/inventors-save-planet/

https://web.archive.org/web/20130406112229/http://www.w2energycorp.com/

Germany Swaps Nuclear for Solar and Wind Power

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9932-germany-swaps-nuclear-for-solar-and-wind-power

Use of genetic algorithms to design turbine blades

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZUNRmwoijw&sns=em

Wind Farms adding to Global Warming . . .

This posts it to the greentank.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html

Wind farms can cause climate change, finds new study - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html

Maglev Wind Turbine

http://www.maglevwindturbine.com

Demo CGI for proposed 2GW Magnetic Leviatated wind Turbine.

*Efficient Frictionless Power Generation with less maintenance, compared to HAWT.
No oil change or replacement of the bearings, gears.
Since, MAGLEV does NOT require such.

** Current bearing technology has forced wind turbine designers into horizontal spindle three bladed wind turbines. In this design the huge blades are connected to a spindle in the center. The bearings that support the spindle and control the pitch of the blades (which can be hundreds of feet long) see huge pitch-moment loading, some of which is manifest as torque energy that is focused through the center spindle. The target speed for the spindle is 18 or 20 rpm and the bearings holding the spindle are mounted in a huge casting which also contains a large gearbox stepping the speed up to 1800 to 2000 RPMs which allows for the proper surface speed relationship between the coils and magnets. It is necessary to invert or condition the current, which is expensive. This gearbox is full of many large bearings, gears and castings; for a 2 MW turbine the gearbox can easily weigh 30 tons. This gearbox needs to be mounted on the top of a pole more than 150 feet in the air and be able to support the turbine blades under full-force wind conditions.

***MAGLEV Power Generation, the pitch moment ratio is closer to 1-to-1 then the 100-to-1 as with a horizontal spindle design.

Wake galloping wind power , as in Galloping Gertie

From New Scientist: Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping 

Now Hyung-Jo Jung and Seung-Woo Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, plan to harness these destructive forces to generate energy. They have built a prototype that produces energy using a specific type of unstable airflow called wake galloping.

Wake galloping is a form of vigorous vibration that affects cylindrical parts of structures, such as the cables on suspension bridges, exposed to seemingly harmless airflow. When the wind passes a horizontal cylinder, eddy currents called wake vortices are created on the lee side. These induce a lifting force on a cylinder in the path of these eddies - but only if the two have the same diameter and the second cylinder is three to six diameters away from the first.

The leeward cylinder's weight counteracts the lift by pulling it back down again, resulting in the cylinder repeatedly moving up and down as the wind continues to blow. It is this movement that Jung and Lee hope to harness as energy.

To do this, they built a device containing two 85-centimetre long, 5-cm-diameter perspex rods spaced appropriately from each other. The rod on the leeward side was attached to a magnet, which was free to move within a copper coil (see diagram). As the cylinder moved, so did the magnet, generating a current in the coil.

The team found that even at wind speeds between 2.5 to 4.5 metres per second, when traditional wind turbines are inefficient, the system generated nearly half a watt of electrical power. They think this could be improved if the magnets and coils were optimised. The team report their findings in Smart Materials and Structures (DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/20/5/055022).

"One of the most promising applications for this is monitoring a structure's health using wireless sensors," Jung says. "The device could supply the monitors with power in a bridge or a high-rise building." And if enough of the generators were grouped together, he adds, they could power a bridge's street lighting.

The pair are now attempting to find what Jung calls the "most efficient size of the device" before they attempt to commercialise it.

Jung and Lee are not alone in harnessing unusual aspects of the wind. Humdinger Wind Energy of Honolulu, Hawaii, led by founder Shawn Frayne, is interested in a similar phenomenon called aeroelastic flutter, in which aerodynamic forces reinforce a structure's natural resonance, causing it to vibrate. The most famous example of this occurred in 1940, when the newly opened Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington state began undulating in a light breeze, earning it the nickname Galloping Gertie. Within four months of completion, the bridge had shaken itself to shreds in a storm.

Frayne has created the Windbelt, which uses aeroelastic flutter to vibrate a plastic ribbon in light to moderate breezes. The vibration moves a magnet through a coil, which generates current in a similar fashion to Jung and Lee's device.

Both will likely find a market, says Matthew Wright of the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton in the UK. "There are situations where you need a small amount of power, but in a location that's too remote to connect to the grid, or to deliver fuel or batteries to. One of these devices might well find a niche there."

An alternative to Windmills

On NewScientist: Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping

THE thought of wind power brings visions of giant turbines, high-altitude kites and graceful sailboats to mind. But the breeze has a more sinister side, full of turbulence that can wreak havoc with bridges and other structures.

Now Hyung-Jo Jung and Seung-Woo Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, plan to harness these destructive forces to generate energy. They have built a prototype that produces energy using a specific type of unstable airflow called wake galloping.

Wake galloping is a form of vigorous vibration that affects cylindrical parts of structures, such as the cables on suspension bridges, exposed to seemingly harmless airflow. When the wind passes a horizontal cylinder, eddy currents called wake vortices are created on the lee side. These induce a lifting force on a cylinder in the path of these eddies - but only if the two have the same diameter and the second cylinder is three to six diameters away from the first.

The leeward cylinder's weight counteracts the lift by pulling it back down again, resulting in the cylinder repeatedly moving up and down as the wind continues to blow. It is this movement that Jung and Lee hope to harness as energy.

To do this, they built a device containing two 85-centimetre long, 5-cm-diameter perspex rods spaced appropriately from each other. The rod on the leeward side was attached to a magnet, which was free to move within a copper coil (see diagram). As the cylinder moved, so did the magnet, generating a current in the coil.

The team found that even at wind speeds between 2.5 to 4.5 metres per second, when traditional wind turbines are inefficient, the system generated nearly half a watt of electrical power. They think this could be improved if the magnets and coils were optimised. The team report their findings in Smart Materials and Structures (DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/20/5/055022).

"One of the most promising applications for this is monitoring a structure's health using wireless sensors," Jung says. "The device could supply the monitors with power in a bridge or a high-rise building." And if enough of the generators were grouped together, he adds, they could power a bridge's street lighting.

The pair are now attempting to find what Jung calls the "most efficient size of the device" before they attempt to commercialise it.

Jung and Lee are not alone in harnessing unusual aspects of the wind. Humdinger Wind Energy of Honolulu, Hawaii, led by founder Shawn Frayne, is interested in a similar phenomenon called aeroelastic flutter, in which aerodynamic forces reinforce a structure's natural resonance, causing it to vibrate. The most famous example of this occurred in 1940, when the newly opened Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington state began undulating in a light breeze, earning it the nickname Galloping Gertie. Within four months of completion, the bridge had shaken itself to shreds in a storm.

Frayne has created the Windbelt, which uses aeroelastic flutter to vibrate a plastic ribbon in light to moderate breezes. The vibration moves a magnet through a coil, which generates current in a similar fashion to Jung and Lee's device.

Both will likely find a market, says Matthew Wright of the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton in the UK. "There are situations where you need a small amount of power, but in a location that's too remote to connect to the grid, or to deliver fuel or batteries to. One of these devices might well find a niche there."

On Slashdot:  Harnessing the Energy of Galloping Gertie"You've all seen the footage of Galloping Gertie, the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge. This is due to a type of turbulence called Wake Galloping, caused by airflow creating lift on the lee-side of cylinders (or cables on suspension bridges.) Now researchers in South Korea have developed a way of harnessing the turbulence to generate electricity. Their device works most efficiently at wind speeds too low for conventional wind turbines."

UFO crash hits wind turbine!

Be on the lookout for a UFO with a giant wind turbine blade sticking out of it. LOL

A UFO is believed to have struck a giant wind turbine in South Lincolnshire.

These blade are just massive, and you have to admit it really look like it hit something hard but there is no damage on the mast. Also one of the blades are just missing, how do you loose a telephone pole size windmill blade and can't find where it went?

http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ Is the owner of the turbine.

In a later report they found out the real cause metal fatigue.
It wasn't ET 'wat done it'  10 February 2009 Interim report rules out UFO’s

Wind turbines make bat lungs explode

Researchers at the University of Calgary have found out why bats have been dying near wind turbines.



From: New Scientist

"Beware: exploding lungs" is not a sign one would expect to see at a wind farm. But a new study suggests this is the main reason bats die in large numbers around wind turbines.

The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. In fact, several studies have suggested the risk to bats is greater. In May 2007, the US National Research Council published the results of a survey of US wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60% of winged animals killed. Migrating birds, meanwhile, appear to steer clear of the turbines.

Why bats - who echolocate moving objects - are killed by turbines has remained a mystery until now. The research council thought the high-frequency noise from the turbines' gears and blades could be disrupting the bats' echolocation systems.

In fact, a new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue's blood vessels. This is known as a barotrauma, and is well-known to scuba divers.

"While searching for bat carcasses under wind turbines, we noticed that many of the carcasses had no external injuries or no visible cause of death," says Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada.

Internal injuries

Baerwald and colleagues collected 188 dead bats from wind farms across southern Alberta, and determined their cause of death. They found that 90% of the bats had signs of internal haemorrhaging, but only half showed any signs of direct contact with the windmill blades. Only 8% had signs of external injuries but no internal injuries.

The movement of wind-turbine blades creates a vortex of lower air pressure around the blade tips similar to the vortex at the tip of aeroplane wings. Others have suggested that this could be lethal to bats, but until now no-one had carried out necropsies to verify the theory.

Baerwald and her colleagues believe that birds do not suffer the same fate as bats - the majority of birds are killed by direct contact with the blades - because their lungs are more rigid than those of bats and therefore more resistant to sudden changes in pressure.

Bats eat nocturnal insects including agricultural pests, so if wind turbines affected their population levels, this could affect the rest of the local ecosystems. And the effects could even be international. "The species being killed are migrants," says Baerwald. "If bats are killed in Canada that could have consequences for ecosystems as far away as Mexico."

Windy day

One solution could be to increase the minimum wind speed needed to set the blades in motion. Most bats are more active in low wind.

The study was funded by a number of bat conservation groups together with energy companies with a financial interest in wind energy, such as Shell Canada and Alberta Wind Energy.

Journal reference: Current Biology (vol 18 p R696)

Tech Allows Stable Integration of Wind In the Power Grid

From Slashdot:
"One of the most frequently raised arguments against renewable power sources is that they can only supply a low percentage of the total power because their unpredictability can destabilize the grid. Spain seems to have disproved this assertion. In the last three days, the wind power generation records with respect to the total demand were beaten twice (in special conditions: a very windy weekend, at night): 45% on November 5 and almost 54% last night (Google translation; Spanish original). There was no instability. These milestones were accomplished with the help of a control center that processes meteorologic data from the whole country and predicts, with high certainty, the wind and solar power that will be generated, allowing a stable integration of all the renewable power. You can see a graphic of the record here."

Windmill Efficiency.

I have been searching for articles on making efficient wind mills.

This seems like a really obvious thing, but apparently no one is doing this right!

Some articles below show this.

http://nov55.com/wdm.html
http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw91.htm
http://www.appropedia.org/Savonius_rotor


This seems like a perfect problem to put to a genetic algorithm search.
If I could find a good simulation code, then many different designs not just of blade shape but orientations, configuration. Both horizontal and vertical can be simulated and tested quickly.

I am definitely seeing a trend where very old wind mill designs are cheaper easier and more efficient then these modern high tech mega windmills.

Where modern windmills seem skewed towards large construction projects.
It would seem something is broken in the wind industry.


Some additional interesting articles:

• Reciprocating wind generator - From
  
  
  
• Cretan Sail based windmill designs.
  
  

A few more ideas.

• You know about shark skin has dimples that reduce drag, Using these in water pipes, ship hulls and propellers should make these more efficient.
  
  
  

  Its dermal denticles decrease drag and turbulence by directing water flow over the body, which allows surrounding water to pass over the shark more effectively. SPEEDO Introduces Fastskin -- the Fastest Swimsuit Ever Made

  
  Would this work with Air? For Windmill blades, and aircraft propellers and wings?
  
  
  
• Energy storage is a big deal. Can we store compress air underground generated from a windmill or solar (sterling cycle) and then have generators that convert this compressed air in to power on demand?

UPDATE:
  I found a few more good links on this.
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l11.html
http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw91.htm

Welcome to Green Ideas

 I have been having many brainstorming session over E-mail, phone and Facebook. Ideas such as  Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Bio Fuels as well as the problems associated with them like Energy Storage, Electric Vehicles, and Green Materials and manufacturing techniques. Also carbon sequestration, and anything that will move us past the  petroleum age and the impending climate disaster it has brought.

Now I finally will have a place for the open discussion and hopefully new solutions leading to inventions and product. For any of these ideas to work, they must not only be green but economically viable and buy that I mean profitable.

I would like to invite as many smart people in to these brainstorming sessions as possible.
My only requirement is to keep an open mind.  As I am even open to things like biblical references, but don't want to tangent too far down those paths.

The end goal is to work towards reversing global warming and other problems facing the continued expansion of the human race.  I believe this idea of limiting the human race at 10 Billion is horrific. If we are to continue to progress, we must keep inventing and take control over all aspects of our environment.  I think the earth could easily support 1 trillion people comfortable with trillions more living thought the solar system and beyond.

Below is a list of some of what I have been researching and getting in to some very deep discussions. 

• Bio Diesel - Algae, Jatropha, Fisher-Trope process, and other plant oils.
• Bio Gasoline - pyrolysis, hydropyrolysis,
• Bio Gas - HHO, Syngas, methane hydrates
• Solar, holographic lenses, flexible cells,  alternatives to Silicon, ways to reduce cost, 
• Wind - optimal designs, cost reductions
• Power storage, Super Caps, batteries, thermal
• Geothermal - way to reduce cost, maintenance
  
• Electrical generation, transmission and storage
• Non petroleum based plastics, Eco-epoxy and materials for manufacturing
• Materials for third world production, like using plant fibers
• Alternatives to Cement that release CO2 during production
• Methane and CO2 release during food production