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110 Comments
- metrodigg, on 01/29/2009, -3/+89This is the kind of innovation that will, hopefully, drive the economic recovery.
- jsmithers, on 01/29/2009, -4/+55Video and more info: http://www.theweekextra.com/news/2007/12/future-of ...
Contact details at the bottom of this story: http://www.farmshow.com/issues/32/02/320207.asp
PLEASE PLEASE do NOT phone the guy - use email instead, or post. He's a private individual and it's not fair to inundate him with calls, or create the Digg effect on his phone. Better yet, only contact him if you're an investor or some other helpful person. - davidbrowne, on 01/30/2009, -13/+55That design looks awful. It is a very DIY build by someone who has little understanding of turbines. Vertical axis designs far superior to his have been tried and tested, but that cannot compete with horizontal axis turbines, as utilizing wind drag rather than wind lift, will always be around 3-4 times less efficient, and require much more material. All he has done is made a very ugly, blown up version with far too much material wasted.
- mmrp, on 01/30/2009, -2/+34That site is full of BS. Get this:
Spin a steel disk with an electric motor. Press blocks of wood against the spinning disk to create friction. Use the heat from the friction to generate steam. Use the steam to drive a generator. Use the output from the generator to power the electric motor that's spinning the steel disk. Ta Da! Free energy!
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/10/14/how-to-g ... - davidbrowne, on 01/30/2009, -2/+32Drag and Axis are hardly technical words. I am currently at university studying mechanical engineering, with a particular interest in the design of wind/ocean current turbines, and as such I read around the subject as much as possible. Its my first time commenting, so maybe I was wrong to think you could post your opinions.
- Alheithinn, on 01/29/2009, -1/+24As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
- Chompy, on 01/30/2009, -0/+22FTA: "If the 40 foot baffle system is successful, that means that 1 turbine and baffle system (about $200,000), would have the same amount of power as 12 turbines without baffles (about $150,000 ), so there’s financial efficiency."
uh.. - sockpuppets, on 01/29/2009, -3/+24Exxon had him killed.
- rupric, on 01/29/2009, -2/+22I saw a TV show with something like this and they gave the guys name and company and when I searched the internet all traffic pointed to a site no longer around??? Why is this technology so difficult to figure out? Seems pretty strait forward.
- fcbarca8, on 01/29/2009, -3/+23Hey Obama. Invest in this guy. It might actually work.
- fracai, on 01/30/2009, -1/+20Until there's a full size working model I'm still a bit skeptical.
Though it does look promising, Fuller states that every 10 feet of baffle equates to a 300% increase in energy output and then extrapolates this to a 40 foot baffle, a 1200% increase, and that 1 system can then produce as much as 12 turbines. That kind of claim needs much more evidence than the article provides.
Still, interesting and exciting. - nihilville, on 01/30/2009, -2/+21The difference in meaning, while minute, is plain as day to me.
As a serial comma user myself, I must defend the practice. - Zerotheos, on 01/30/2009, -1/+20Article is complete *****. "As nobody made a large scale vertical turbine before" Not true.
http://www.helixwind.com/
I think I'd invest in these guys instead. - glinsvad, on 01/30/2009, -0/+18Also FTA: "for every 10 feet of baffle, there’s a 300 percent increase of output with the rotor. So my thought is that a 40 foot baffle will increase output by 1200 percent"
Uhm, but aerodynamics does not scale linearly... - hackiavelli, on 01/30/2009, -0/+16"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
- wedges, on 01/30/2009, -6/+21if you were really into protecting the guy you'd have left his contact details off all together.
- sassafras1232, on 01/30/2009, -0/+15Right so if I made it 80 feet long that would be a 2400% increase! 160 feet long would be a 4800% increase!
This article was clearly BS. - kd420, on 01/29/2009, -2/+15I wish the Canadian government will spend some money on wind power. I think it's one of the cheapest (if not THE cheapest) form of renewable energy to harvest, and you can put them in remote places too (it's Canada, we all pretty much live close to the US border anyways). Unfortunately I think that since our economy has a HUGE natural resources dependency, the government is unwilling to do this.
- onsenguy, on 01/30/2009, -2/+15I'll take the word of a guy who obviously has done more research into the subject than you. I know what he's talking about by comparing wind drag and lift in wind turbine design. There is a reason modern horizontal vanes have a cross-section like a plane wing instead of a flat sheet just tilted at an angle.
His baffles,no matter how aerodynamic, still have to come backwards through the oncoming wind on the return part of their cycle resulting in drag.
The inventor's description of the scalability of his design is laughable. He might as well tie buckets to some poles. The structure required to support this is also the downfall of vertical designs, it puts a huge stress on the mechanism at the bottom of the device.
If in doubt read the Wikipedia article on wind power which explains all of this in great detail. - LeepII, on 01/29/2009, -6/+17All alternative energy is being deliberately suppressed.
- Exilon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+12***** alarm sounding.
- Temlakos, on 01/29/2009, -1/+11If I read the article correctly, this will solve a lot of problems, including bird kills, wind gust correction, and so on. It might even run in a stiffer wind than a conventional turbine can. Ironically, you'd want to capture the energy of a good stiff gale (Beaufort force 7-8).
Now where can I get a kit? - Genghis1, on 01/30/2009, -1/+10Just because it spins in low wind doesn't necessarily mean that it has enough force to reliably run a generator. I wouldn't invest in it.
- nepidae, on 01/30/2009, -1/+10Another problem it solves is most of the mechanical bits can be placed on the ground. This means maintenance/repairs are much easier/cheaper and larger more efficient systems which would simply not be viable 100 feet in the air.
- miggyb, on 01/30/2009, -1/+10Plato is the mother of invention?
That's kind of a self-centered thing for him to say. - kaelyiesta, on 01/30/2009, -3/+12Or maybe we should invest ourselves, instead of hoping for someone else to take charge.
- mrASSMAN, on 01/30/2009, -0/+8I lost interest after the article mentioned he hadn't yet hooked it up to a generator.
- HappyScrappy, on 01/30/2009, -2/+10"no one has made a large scale vertical turbine before"? There are gobs of them.
Bullcrap.
If he's going to lie about this, what else is he lying about? - greenlight2001, on 01/30/2009, -1/+8It doesn't appear he has been dug down...
- dsmx, on 01/30/2009, -1/+8No by the oil companies.
- gumby013, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7PacWind has been up and running for a while.
http://www.pacwind.net/ - offrdbandit, on 01/30/2009, -1/+7He's not.
- lepetitmousse, on 01/30/2009, -1/+6blog spam
real article was submitted a couple days earlier
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/27/the-impossible ... - kinerry, on 01/29/2009, -3/+8And by theory, you mean HYPOTHESIS
- CivicTV, on 08/14/2009, -0/+5You've never worked with Plato then. You can make anything out of it.
- breakneckridge, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5@ dandandanthem
A turbine generator doesn't have to spin fast to capture a lot of energy. In fact, the speed that a turbine spins at has almost nothing to do with how much power it generates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0v9_zV2uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA9uBdkmRtY&fea ... - arielh85, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5original article (the one with the actual interview) is here - http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/27/the-impossible ...
- speedyrev, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5I wonder if he understands the limitation of turbines. Friction will kill him as he attempts to scale it. He's using fuzzy math.
- bruuks, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5Years back, in high school, a friend of mine who said he read university level physics textbooks in his free time, had no concept of energy, perpetual motion, efficiency, etc.
He suggested that we needed to develop a solar panel that was so efficient that we build a box out of it, and place a lightbulb in the box, and generate electricity from that. I wasn't sure whether to let him continue to live in his own little world, for our amusement, or to enlighten him to reality before he actually lost money and time on his dumb ideas. - Berkana, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4The most efficient large scale vertical wind turbine was posted on digg a while back, if I remember correctly. Terra Moya Aqua built large vertical turbines, and actually broke a record for range of efficient operation:
http://www.tmawind.com/turbine.php
And of course, Helix Wind and Windside have been producing very efficient Savonius turbines for a while:
http://www.helixwind.com/en/product.php
http://www.windside.com/products.html - inactive, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4Welcome! Digg is Slashdot for 12 year olds. Read the comments for amusement, expect to get buried if you post anything remotely mature and informed.
- HappyScrappy, on 01/30/2009, -1/+5Because he's full of *****.
It's easy to say you solve problems no one else can when you just make ***** up that isn't true. - davidbrowne, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4How did that video ever get made!?
- AdmiralAcbar, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4The turbines w/o baffles cost 150k apiece.
- FreckleEars, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4My god people are stupid. Does he not understand that the amount of energy his contraption puts out is about 20% of what he is he is using to spin that motor. Ugh sometimes I hate people. This is the same idea as, HEY! why don't I put generators on my rear wheels in my car and when I drive it I can produce energy to spin the front ones. *****, I heard someone say that before to me legitimately. I tried explaining that the amount of force required to rotate those generators will in turn, create a new massive source of drag, thus making the engine use much more energy to move.
I even made a model out of legos. A simple 4 wheel car with the rear axles connected to one motor and the front to another motor. There is essentially no difference in a electric generator and an electric motor. I proved this to him by hooking both motors up and spinning one set of wheels. To his amazement, no matter what set I spun, the other set spun, just a little slower. I asked him, so if I push this, by your logic it should run itself right? Yes he replied. BAM, hopes and dreams crushed in 2 seconds as that thing slowed down as soon as I let go of it. - nowhereelse, on 01/30/2009, -3/+6There are plenty of efficient VAWTs out there. This is nothing new whatsoever.
- dhughes, on 01/30/2009, -0/+3 They've tested them, and other types, for over 20 years at the Wind Energy Institute of Canada http://www.weican.ca/ I don't know if they still test the "eggbeater" type turbines but I saw them there years ago.
- mrASSMAN, on 01/30/2009, -3/+6Yeah.. why do we need his contact info?
- bruuks, on 01/30/2009, -1/+4as strait forward as spelling rite?
- elwoodblues, on 01/30/2009, -0/+3Whats a baffle?
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