We've seen a couple innovative
wind power solutions pop up, but none that claim to offer the benefits of maglev wind turbines, which use full-permanent magnets to nearly eliminate friction by "floating" the blades above the base. According to developers, the technology is capable of scaling to massive sizes, with a proposed $53M turbine able enough to replace 1000 traditional windmills and power 750 thousand homes. Additional benefits include the ability to generate power with winds as slow as three miles per hour, operational costs some 50 percent cheaper than windmills, and an estimated lifespan of 500 years. That all sounds great, but the real proof will come when these things get put to use, which may happen sooner than you'd think: Development is proceeding rapidly in both the US and China, with Chinese power company Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology currently building a $5M factory to produce the turbines in capacities from 400 to 5,000 watts.
posted November 26th 2007 3:31PM
What I find more interesting is this:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html
and it hasn't been posted on Engadget yet
A microwave generator that turns used tires, plastics, and anything else made from hydrocarbons into oil and natural gas. It uses 1/17th of the energy it produces to run. Trash into oil, a real concept that we can use right now.
Good for waste disposal, but at best probably barely breaks even on EROEI.
Oh great - more oil! When will people get with the game - what we need to do is burn LESS oil, not find more from places like this.
mmmm, less vibration...now my penthouse tenants won't get all pissy at me for cutting my peak load. I'll take a few of the 5kW bad boys and charge them a premium for in-house green power!
Jay Leno has one of these on the roof of his garage.
Hmmmm....
Imagine if they get it to generate 1.21 gigiwatts and it rolls over and hits 88mph. Keep it away from any flux capacitors.
cough.. bullsh_t.. cough.
Even if you're dumb enough to believe the rest, what can you do with an obvious lie like "an estimated lifespan of 500 years"? Here's a complete list of mechanical devices with an estimated lifespan of 500 years:
(Notice the blank space. There are no such devices.)
just becuase i'm bored, this man-made clock is 700 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_cathedral_clock
also almost 400 year old windmill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitstone_Windmill
then of course locks those are probably the oldest mechanical devices
Richard, If we're picking nits, the statement being challenged is "an estimated lifespan of 500 years." Even if we accept that a clock that was modified to a different method of operation at one point and reassembled from a "pile of junk" at another is really the same clock, who would have been fool enough to estimate a lifespan of 500 years when it was made. Now, a lock that is infrequently used might well be estimated to last that long and is a good point. This windmill unlike a lock is expected to move nearly continuously. Presumably this "estimate" is based on the fact that no (major) moving parts are rubbing against each other, but that relies on the magnetic field never failing and the wind never blowing the spinning bit off of its magnetic cushion. Really, the fundamental point is that this "estimated lifespan" is an obvious lie, and I don't think you disagree with me about that.
Wrong.
There are several mechanical piston water pumps that have been in continuous operation since the 1500's. I should not forget to mention the old Dutch windmills that are many centuries old.
You know what happens when you ASSuME?
From the makers of maglev:
"The Maglev generator is expected to boost wind energy generating capacity by as much as 20 percent over traditional wind turbines."
also...
"When compared with the operational hours of existing wind turbines, the new technology will add an additional 1,000 hours of operation annually to wind power plants in areas with an average wind speed of 3 m/s."
Seems like the 1000 hrs extra operational hours have been mistaken for 1000 times more efficient.
Hey it's the big bad MCP!
There's no easy solution to the energy problems we face. Wind and solar will be all we have eventually. The anti-nuke people have forced us to use coal which produces the most co2 and dump billions of tons of other crap including radioactive debris into the atmosphere every year. Until we advance solar (including wind) far beyond existing technology we have only one choice if we care about co2 emissions. It's nuclear, or nothing, time to grow up and face it.