We've seem some impressive
wind power tech, but a new breed of small, high-power wind turbines could potentially bring efficient wind power home. Developed by an inventor named Doug Selsam, the new turbines have rotors just 14-18 inches in diameter, but can produce 200 watts in a 20MPH wind, and much more than that at higher wind speeds. The trick is using high-strength carbon-fiber materials that allow several rotors to be hooked up as one -- in strong winds a thirteen-rotor system can produce enough juice to blow out a bank of car headlights "like flashbulbs." That's pretty impressive -- especially since the system is light and balanced enough to be held up with one hand. No word on when or how we might see these hit the public, but we can see some pretty sweet applications -- laptops in the park, anyone?
[Thanks, Yocheved]
posted May 13th 2008 4:58PM
Except the fact that its fugly this might be a good idea
I dunno, its so small they might be able to design them like little pinwheels or wind chimes....
At least we are making progress from those freaking huge tri-blade towers....
If something this small and light becomes powerful enough, slap it on top of a hybrid-type car and recharge the battery as you drive. Wind power + electric car at 60MPH = Perpetual Motion!
@ Jason
No.
The perpetual motion one is interesting although flawed, you could recharge a certain amount of battery power, or at any rate negate the need for extra juice to power the cars electronics.
If it was positioned well, then it could also be used to recharge batteries when stationary too.
I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure that, in a 100% efficient system, the power obtained from attaching this to a car would exactly equal the power lost through the added wind resistance (which would require the use of additional battery power during acceleration and maintenance of cruising speed, resulting in a net gain of 0 after you add the wind power 'gains' from coasting or coming to a stop).
I believe it could only add net power to an electric/hybrid vehicle system if it popped up during breaking and folded down during other times, resulting in no additional resistance during acceleration and maintenance of cruising speed.
Two choices in turbines:
1. Big and few.
2. Small and many.
Small and many en-masse will be better. Besides, why build ginormous towers where you can build tons of tiny ones and get even more power?
Because the ginormous ones won't break because of a grain of sand, some water or a bit of dust...
The big ones may be harder to get up and running.... but once they're there, they stay and they work for years.
true, but the big ones need cleaning often, mould and other bacteria can reduce the amount of power output drastically.
Is he David Copperfield?
It wouldn't be perpetual motion. You are getting the energy from the wind. It would be just as close to perpetual as a normal wind turbine, or a solar panel... which neither of these are perpetual...
It's a prototype. Prototypes are always ugly.
@allenvanhellen: Guess what? Not true. The laws of physics make it so that we can't do that. Or else nothing would require any energy. No, even the most efficient system of the most efficient systems would only make 99.999999999% of the power needed. They tried to disprove that a few years ago by making a self-powered fountain that got power from a waterfall below that pushed a turbine. It worked for a few minutes, but the power given back to the fountain got smaller and smaller until there wasn't any.
It would seem that about 1/10 of a second later that guy got his hand sliced off....
Or at least scratched lol.....
Great idea, I would LOVE this, but outside Chicago (and other cities too numerous to list here), how would one find enough wind to make it practical. 20 MPH seems like alot to me. Besides, it would mess up my comb over... :(
put them in the medians of heavily traveled roads the cars and trucks would power them.
even better, put them wind turbines on every car, train, bike... the possibilities are endless...
It doesn't really matter where the winds are, the fact that the electricity generated from them can be piped to wherever its needed.
If these are durable enough they could stick this in the 100's of thousands of unused acres in the Everglades which could generate a ton of power during a hurricane, or the windy open hills and deserts like here in Northern California.
I'm sure there are tall buildings where wind speeds are much higher than on the ground. Could put them there.
I moved to Vegas a year ago. The wind is driving me nuts. Weather.com says its only 22 mph right now but this morning there were guts past 30. If the noise factor was low (ie the HOA could not force me to take it down), the ROI would be guaranteed for me.
the U of Chicago had some people who formed a company called Aerotecure ( http://www.aerotecture.com ) and if you look into it these guys created a really advanced wind turbine technology that actually works in Chicago
Correction, UIC, not U of C
People, there's wind anywhere you care to look for it. Aside from the obvious places frequently suggested, like roofs of tall buildings, mountainsides, and open plains with regular high winds, there are other possibilities. What about a floating box-kite array of several thousand multi-parallel micro turbines supported by balloon and tethered to the ground by cables? It's feasible and has the potential to generate a substantial amount of power. Or on the side of skyscrapers, to catch thermal updrafts?
On a further engineering note, sequenced turbines have the potential to generate more power than a single large scale turbine if correctly balanced, as seen above. If this array is designed to reduce turbulence and vortex shear at the blade tips, they should be quiet enough to put on the roof of your house. Maybe. :P
Ultimately, this story suggests a step in overcoming three of the four main barriers to widespread adoption of wind powered turbines: cost (and return on investment), noise, and size (the fourth of course being consistency).
It's a good idea, and if a funcitonal, efficient version were to become available, I would put a set of them on my roof in an instant, with an accumulator pile in my house, and an excess tap selling power back into the grid to reduce my household costs.
Kudos (if it really works)!
Slap 1 on top of every streetlight, include a battery and bypass for too little wind and too much. You could run cables to a bank of batteries or to perhaps a charging station for a flywheel and you could section off areas to power stoplights and all the damn cameras. You would use the grid as the backup.
only getting 200 watts in 20mph winds is pathetic. I don't know what engadget is on about by calling them 'superpoweful'
Considering a 46" commercial sailboat turbine only produces 400W at 28 MPH, this 14-18" one making 200W at 20 MPH is pretty sweet.
http://www.nwpwr.com/products/wind/air_x_marine.htm
yeah, but that's a single turbine. the point we're all missing here is all this guy has done is attached 13 small turbines to a big stick and called it a single turbine, when it blatantly isn't.
he's getting 200 watts from 13 small turbines which isn't really much of an achivement
looking at the picture and then looking at the stats can be misleading. i believe the 200 watts is from one turbine.
Not exactly correct mark. I believe this guy was in the latest pop sci for this creation. He may have added to the total number blades involved but he is only powering a single driveshaft/motor.
Saying that he's wired 14 blades together and calling it 14 turbines is akin to calling a dual propped boat motor, a boat with two engines.
From what I recall, he had to overcome turbulence issues with that many blades by designing them in a special manner so they wouldn't interfere with one another. He's designed 3kw designs that function with 25 blades and one end is supported by a balloon. Not 100% practical but very interesting.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-05/ten-times-turbine
Put them on a Prius to recharge the battery while in motion, thus reducing the need for the gas engine even more. Plus it would make the Prius even uglier.
" Plus it would make the Prius even uglier."
Is that even possible??
clown car-esque even.
200W is about 1/4 hp. You'd need a lot of them. Plus, they'd be generating power by adding drag to the car.
Wonder if we can power that turbine with the "whoosh" from when that joke went right over Bill Brasky's head.
neeeeeeeeeeeeeow!
Since he'll be going over 20 mph it would be greater than 200 wats. However probably still not enough. Still, a good concept.
I'm sure it is possible to make the Toyota Pyus uglier. certainly the drivers need no further incentive to act any more smug at being exempt from London's (that's in England) daily congestion charge.
"With 18" diameter rotors, we're putting out a varying current running between 100 and 200 watts."
pretty hard to take these guys seriously if they don't know the differance between power(watts) and current(amps).
Pretty difficult to take you seriously when you misspell "difference" and can't find the SHIFT key on your keyboard.
P = I * V
A varying current results in varying power output when applied at a constant voltage. They were correct in what they said.
Odd image. The shadow of the light bulb setup is too long and I can't see any wire going from the turbine to the light?
Normal image.
The wire seems to be running down his arms, and he's standing on the barrel with the light bulb.
I like this idea. It's small enough to be useful around most homes, and it's likely pretty cheap too.
The shadows in the image is comming from the sun, not the light bulb. Also, there is clearly a electrical wire going down from the turbine, between his arms and down behinds his trousers.
Put them on a VW bug and people would think they were stock...(though not very effective on a gas powered car)
There was an article in this months popular science where a guy has done a very similar thing, but his put out 2000+ watts worth of power and are a more commercial/industrial design. Neat stuff.
this guy is the exact same guy in the recent popular science issue. this is some pretty cool tech... what's next, suburbian neighborhoods with these wind turbines hanging from houses? that will be the day when we realize oil dependency is stupid!
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-05/ten-times-turbine
Most of the electricity in the US is generated by coal, hydro and gas turbine, not oil. Our oil dependency is because of our cars.
I knew Beenies would come back in style!!!
Attn. Nilay Patel,
It didn't blow out a bank of "car batteries". It blew out "car headlight bulbs"
"An easy 200 watts in about a 20 mph wind or so, lighting the four 50 watt car headlight bulbs ..." "In stronger winds this prototype blows out these lights like flashbulbs - poof!"
Now that steroid bans have real teeth, the USA's javelin team is working every possible loop-hole in the rule book to prevail this summer in Bejing....
I'd be interested in strapping a couple of those to the roof of an electric car and measuring the benefit of the power generation vs. the deficit created by drag. If the net result is a substantial gain, it could allow EV to travel a lot further on a single charge. Of course, ultimately you wouldn't strap them onto the roof, but work them into dedicated tunnels beneath and to the sides of the car. In any event, this is really cool tech.
Any energy conversion process is going to less than 100% efficient, so for each watt you get out of your car-mounted turbines, you're going to sap more than a watt of power. Therefore, the net result is ALWAYS going to be a loss of power and reduce the distance the EV can travel on a charge. If I were you, I'd spend the money you were going to pay for the turbines on a basic physics textbook.
Ian,
You may well be right, but I wouldn't discount the possibility so soon. I'm sure that air scoops introduce some drag that otherwise wouldn't have been there, yet they allow you to squeeze out a net gain in power by improving the burn of your fuel.
There are definitely ways to make this be a plus to EV efficiency. What if the dedicated tunnels Matt mentioned had shutters on them, giving no difference while accelerating and cruising, but opening up when braking to introduce drag (aiding slightly in braking) and generate a little extra energy? What if there's some magic point where a strong enough headwind will generate more energy than the extra cost of pushing through the extra drag at normal
You missed the whole "physics" thing didn't you? The drag caused by the turbines will use more energy than the energy you will gain. That is BASIC PHYSICS. Period. The laws cannot be changed.
japan has already done the whole, put wind turbines above freeways thing, its not some new great idea. Im not to sure how well theirs works but im sure its useful. the US is just way to far behind on alternative energy sources no matter what the government says.
Can we please do something about these perpetual motion people? I count 5 separate posts in this entry alone proposing some sort of perpetual motion project with these turbines. I propose we send them all back to high school physics, or at least keep them out of public office and prevent them from operating heavy machinery.
Is conservation of energy so hard to understand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
I once jetted across the harbor in a bathtub by sticking the shower pipe in the drain so that the water would shoot out the shower head and propel the bathtub.
;-)
@David: Excellent comment! The shutter idea is great. It is best to consider the whole process and not just a piece of it like @thefozz & @Mrbob. Limited thinking = Limited Results. How do you like that equation? Is it conserved enough for you?
Although I wonder what the actual net gain could be.
David: Scoops are generally there to introduce cooler, more condensed air into the intake manifold. It's doing more than just catching air and turning something to generate electricity. So its getting air from inside the engine bay vs from the outside.
This is different. The same energy that would be spinning the turbines on your car is acting as resistance to the car moving itself, equally. If anything it didn't waste energy, it would at best, bring it back to 0 gain/loss.
Although your point about deploying these while braking is a good idea, but you'd have to be really creative to make something like that work and not be completely hideous, and also functional enough to make it worthwhile.
Lol, the idea of applying the turbines only while breaking is good?
Those cars already have regenerative brakes; What good would adding a wind turbine possibly do?
You'll be a lot better off trying to dream up a way of capturing the wind/turbulence created by passing vehicles on the side of a freeway.
Superpowerful small wind turbines light up some guys trainers
"enough juice to blow out a bank of car headlights "like flashbulbs."
is that a normal unit of measure for electrical out put ?
Laptop in the park? Not if it's gonna make my laptop blow like a bank of flashbulbs.
His web page says 13 turbines are 10 times more powerful than one.
Why wouldn't you just use thirteen seperate turbines and get 13 times the power?
You're not quite paying enough attention.
He has thirteen propellers on one shaft with one generator.
Sure, he could use thirteen propellors with one generator each, but that will likely cost between ten and thirteen times as much to assemble.
Why do it the expensive way when this way works great?
Well, if you had enough wind-facing space for 13 single turbines next to each other, you could instead use 13 of these 13-turbine models (assuming you had enough depth available), and again get 10 times the power of your 13 turbine example!
This discounts any extra spacing needed for pivoting to follow wind, of course
Put them in front of an industrial fan and you can get free elecrtic! Hmm wait..
Also:
The skeptic in me looks at these pictures and I see two things...
1. The bend in the central shaft puts the outer blades at increasingly greater and varying angles of attack (all producing inefficiencies).
2. The emphasis on "carbon fiber" makes no sense. You could machine or mold simple plastics into the shapes and use stiffer materials like aluminum for the shaft and save huge amounts of overhead.
Plastic (at least in any makeup I've ever seen) and aluminum are not nearly as strong as Carbon Fiber. At its densest, carbon fiber is about equal to the strength of steel, and weighs considerably less.
there are a lot of aplications for such a devise. This could replace the plastic pigion deterents they have at places like bus and train stations. it could also offset the electricity demands to power the lights.
I bet if he were holding a rod of uranium that long it would do a lot more than blow out some lightbulbs.
Looking for the answer to a question we already know the solution for.
That wind is cheaper than uranium?
Yes, nuclear is a good option, but the general public is scared to death of it despite newer technologies that would make new plants perfectly safe. Wind power is totally clean, and heck, why not explore every possible solution?
I *believe* that they could be used for HELPING to decrease gas consumption. As some said, they could be used only when braking.
Or, I think that they could be used actively while driving, and still result in an increase in efficiency. I think the thing is that it will not be a perpetual motion machine because while it increases the overall efficiency of the engine, It still is not 100% efficient.
It won't be perpetual motion because it's reaping energy from a source. It's just like any other wind turbine. However it will still be very useful, just the wrong word to use in that sentence.
"think the thing is that it will not be a perpetual motion machine"
Will NOT be a perpetual motion machine
Put'em along the roads and highways - make use of the "wind" generated by each passing vehicle.
Its not great idea at all, wind might blow and might not, there is so many mechanical points of failure in-there.., also there is noise and that nasty bird killer problem, add the maintenance overhaul etc. Denmark never replaced any of their coal plants even if they have most wind gen. in the world, because it is so unreliable... wind is not viable, get over it..
No shit, right? It's not meant to replace anything. The point of generating wind power is to ease the amount of natural resources that we would have to use otherwise. I'm sure denmark uses a hell of a lot less coal than they did prior to having those wind farms.
Why are you upset about this? I'm happy about anything that will:
A) Lower the frequency of blackouts in California.
and
B) Lower the frequency of me writing triple-digit checks for my electric bills in California.
20 MPH
that's a lot, that's 8.8 m/s
and my country doesn't have that kind of wind, it goes up to only around 6-7 m/s MAX and avaerage around 4-5 m/s
in Bangkok, it's 2 m/s.
no practical wind power for Thailand.. :(
i'd like to know if his design takes into account wake losses, turbulence etc.
also
they can put them everywhere
if there is unlimited transmission
and people stopped bitching about powerlines being built.
Efficiency for wind turbines goes up the larger they are, small turbines are far less effective. The claim that "The trick is using high-strength carbon-fiber materials that allow several rotors to be hooked up as one" is the biggest load of bs i have read in a long time. I can't emphasize enough how dumb this article is.
Can you emphasize on how dumb you are?
This is a stupid idea. The big advocates here at Endgadget want to attach it to their car for greater efficiency! That should tell you a lot right there.
The pictures make it clear that you need a giant freaking pole to make it useful. What's the advantage over a normal windmill? Maybe it's cheaper to build? Oh, wait... carbon fiber. Scratch that benefit.
You need 20 MPH winds and a huge pole-mounted system to light up 1-3 decent lightbulbs. Put in the compact flourescents and you can raise that up to about 10 decent lightbulbs.
20 MPH winds are not normal in most inhabited places on Earth. So really, you put up the pole, you pay for the carbon fiber, and you get 1-4 free lightbulbs for your home.
It should only take about 500 years to get your investment back.
i like the idea of laptops in the park...by BRINGING BACK the beanie hat with the propeller on top - like a small helicopter - you could power your laptop with this set-up!
Would definitely work in places like "Landscatter", CA, in the pass going to Palm Springs, Ca, and Kansas where wind is almost constant.
dyslexic nerds UNTIE !!!
I think all of the people who want to turbines this to your prius, or other hybrid, do not understand physics/electronics. First of all, as pointed out by several other people, having this on your car will increase drag, and the power it generates will not make up for the lost mileage during driving. Secondly, putting shutters around it to only activate while braking is not going to work either. Hybrids have regenerative brakes with generate electricity while braking, so having turbines doesn't do anything for you. The shutters will generate drag around that area of the car when closed, so you will even lose more mpg when the system is not working due to increased drag. That is why streamlining the car is so important to improve gas mileage.
The only way adding a turbine will work is if it pops up out of the car once you park, so it can generate electricity to charge the battery while the car is sitting in the parking lot/driveway. However, driving around with this extra weight will cause you to lose mpg again. Probably the best solution is to install it in your house, and plug it into your car when you get home. It will then charge the batteries while you sleep for the next day.
The reason I see that as a good idea, is because you don't have to invest in any fancy electronics or apply for any permits from your utility company, since the turbine is not connected to the grid.
These Prius fans need to remember that it's so insanely ugly because it's drag coefficient is one of the lowest of all mass-produced automobiles: 0.26 if I remember. Also, the Prius has no real problems with energy in its battery right now, anyway. It recharges via braking, and it never has more than 60% charge in order to conserve battery longevity.
And only awful people drive them, so let's stop bringing them up, haha.
Haha. Duh. It goes through a regulator and powers a battery. The battery powers everything else.
At the very least it's a great idea for lamp posts.
This was supposed to be a reply to the person joking about it blowing out her laptop.
Again, the amazing Engadget redesign, with it's ever-reliable "reply" function and constantly-shifting graphics/layout strikes.
Attach them to the belts of patrons as they exit Moe's... the flatulence could power their vehicles all the way home!