inhabitat.com — 1 Maglev wind turbine, which uses full-permanent magnets to nearly eliminate friction by "floating" the blades above the base could power up to 750,000 homes. According to developers, the technology is capable of scaling to massive sizes, and the ability to generate power with winds as slow as three miles per hour.
Nov 26, 2007 View in Crawl 4
outofbetaNov 28, 2007
and the cake is a lie~
mweatherNov 28, 2007
I'd imagine you'd do it in the exact same way you would a coal or nuclear plant. Both of which have larger footprints.
massmoparDec 21, 2007
As much as I love wind power, this thing is a scam. It's a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine, which, because you have to spin some of the blades into the wind, is only half as efficient as Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (the 3-bladed structures you're used to seeing). Claiming a 20% increase in output over conventional wind turbines is a pipe dream. Bearing losses are usually around 5%.Also, 1 gigawatt of electricity is almost as much as the 17 hydroelectric turbines at the Hoover Dam produce (they make 2 gigawatts). You're telling me that you can make 1/2 as much power as the Hoover Dam with 1 wind turbine?? The rest of their claims, about making electricity that costs less than 1 cent per kW-hr and that this machine has an operational lifespan of 500 years are simply pulling numbers out of thin air to wow investors and get some attention. When's the last time you saw anything man-made with moving parts last for 500 years? With low maintenance costs? The killer is their website is locked. Approved users only. When's the last time you saw a legitimate website not at least have an 'about us' page and a 'how our amazing product works' page?check for yourself<a class="user" href="http://magturbine.com/">http://magturbine.com/</a>