Microwind Generator For Low Power Systems 243
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "Shawn Frayne, has developed Windbelt,
efficient, cheap lowpower wind generator built out of taut kite fabric." Everyone has seen the video where the suspension bridge is ripped apart by wind- his idea was to use the same thing to generate power. I doubt I'll be running my desktop off it any time soon, but it's a cool idea.
Macro wind power: Kite Gen (Score:5, Interesting)
Noise issue (Score:1, Interesting)
I wonder if this makes a noise. buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I have decided to use these instead of microturbines and added a pivot and tail so it can turn with the wind direction, and put 20 up on my roof. Would be interesting to see how the buzz multiplies. Would I be living under a swarm of bees?
Prior Art, 1964 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sub-100W generators are very interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong solution (Score:4, Interesting)
The only sure way to help countries of the third world is for countries like the US to open up their subsidized markets. The corn market in the US for example is subsidized to an extent of almost 10 billion dollars in 2005!
If third world countries got just half of that market, a lot of lives would be changed.
Re:Nah, this is dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
Not too dumb. He was designing it for use in Haiti. While I suspect there are places where nothing is tenable, a thin ribbon under tension is a whole lot simpler and cheaper to manufacture and maintain than a rotating wind turbine. It doesn't have to be mylar, you could use scrap cloth, although mylar may last longer and be easier to keep under tension. LED's were for the demo. You could use the thing to run any light; or better yet charge a small battery so you have power on demand.
He made another good point in the article: If you break this you have something that a local can fix. If you break a solar panel, your stuck with a broken panel (which is trash). What he didn't mention is that this would run at night too, as opposed to a solar panel that only works during the day.
while I agree with another poster's comment that the 30x improvement in efficiency over a microturbine is probably not real, I think it's fairly interesting. Enough so that, since IAAAP (I am an applied physicist), I'm thinking about building one myself to get some numbers and see how well it scales. I know some people in Africa who might be interested in something like this...
Re:Wrong solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Subsidies are necessary, you're not thinking about how the world works. A country should never let a large proportion of it's food production all be outsourced. What happens in case of war or political/trade fallout? Yeah I thought so too. Whle free-market apologists will cry "protectionism" the US was BUILT by protectionists. They understood from gaining their independence that you need to have control over industries that are of strategic value in case of war/disagreement/embargo/etc.
Re:Wrong solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Life is not fair.
Re:Macro wind power: Kite Gen (Score:1, Interesting)
The device is specifically aimed at powering very low power devices in poor and developing countries -- radios, (very) low wattage lights, etc. The generators are projected to be relatively small and the illustration seems to show one hung on the side of a building. The major point is that conventional turbines are inefficient at very low power levels because of frictional losses whereas these windscreens are projected to be an order of magnitude or more better (10-30x according to the article).
You're correct, the device might not scale up to windfarm scale although it's hard to see it as more of a hazard to birds and aircraft than a rotating blade. I have my doubts that a big windscreen will be as efficient at the high end as a turbine, but that's just a guess.
Anyway, it looks to be a cute idea, and I hope it works out.
Re:Wrong solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Protected industries grew; their customers failed to grow because of the higher prices. The net effect was inferior to free trade.
Re:We've been doing this for years. ;-) (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is that generators in series can't easily be synchronized, but generators in parallel would tend to self-synchonize (assuming near-identical construction and side-by-side location).
Re:Macro wind power: Kite Gen (Score:2, Interesting)
This would cause a circle of death above the power plant. Nothing could fly there (birds, planes, etc.) without getting chopped to pieces by extremely high speed wires flying about. I know some people who have experience with wind farms and they always mention the problems with birds - and yes, I've heard the statistics on these numbers but look a little closer and with a grain of salt - so uncontrolled, high speed wires in my opinion are far less green than modern coal plants.
Another oscillating generator (Score:3, Interesting)
It's so Popular Mechanics. Another resonant oscillating generator.
This is an old idea, but the usual form is a free-piston engine. [freepistonpower.com] Popular Mechanics was hot about that one back in 2004. For something that will light two LEDs, that thing looks big and expensive. Note the machined aluminum frame. For comparison, here's a toy wind generator kit [amazon.co.uk] ("convert a plastic bottle to a wind generator!").
Notice how the guy with the vibrating ribbon generator demonstrates it in front of an electric fan. On high. That's probably because it only works in a strong wind. People generally don't live where winds are regularly that high. Wind speed in Port-au-Prince has been between 9 and 12MPH all day, so something that cuts in around 9MPH is needed for use in Haiti.
The classic cheapie generator is taking an oil drum, cutting it in half, and using that as a Savonius rotor. Then you get an alternator from a car, and there's your actual generator. The axle sticks up into the air, where the halves of the oil drum collect the wind and turn the alternator. Here's a smaller version [angelfire.com].
Re:Wrong solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong solution (Score:5, Interesting)
I have news for you: raw industrial efficiency is not the only measure of a successful economy. How a nation's economy provides for its people, long term, is an equally important metric. I would say, a far more important one. Throwing away domestic manufacturing in favor of cheap imports from inimical foreign powers is not a good way to serve the needs of your people. In fact, free trade, so far as the United States is concerned, is doing exactly the opposite. We are transferring massive amounts of money to China in exchange for cheap imports, while simultaneously losing the ability to provide for ourselves. What good are these customers of whom you speak, when there are no longer any American producers of those products? Explain to me how this is good, how it grows our economy?
The original poster in this thread was correct: if you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever you protect your key industries. If you don't, and someone takes them away from you (as is happening with virtually every manufacturing sector in the United States today) you are vulnerable at every level. I'm not saying that means exclude all foreign competition, but it does mean that you make damn sure that foreign competition isn't allowed to operate in a predatory manner. Unfortunately for us, our government and corporate leaders sold us out for a song. Now, I don't know exactly what's going to happen over the next few years, but if what I read about American manufacturing being down to 1950's levels is even close to being true, we are in deep shit.
This is not a joke, this is not some philosophical issue with no real-world effects: when a major economy falls people get hurt. Ours is heading for a fall of Biblical proportions, and it's you Free Traders that will bear a significant responsibility for that event.
BS: slashdot should be ashamed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sub-100W generators are very interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nah, this is dumb (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sub-100W generators are very interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the parts are complex, but the interconnections between them are not.