Superpowerful small wind turbines light up the night

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]

[Mam00th @ May 13th 2008 5:07PM]

Except the fact that its fugly this might be a good idea

[ByronGman @ May 13th 2008 5:09PM]

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....

[Jason @ May 13th 2008 5:46PM]

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!

[ByronGman @ May 13th 2008 5:47PM]

@ Jason

No.

[Josh @ May 13th 2008 5:54PM]

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.

[allenvanhellen @ May 13th 2008 6:28PM]

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.

[Aguiluz @ May 13th 2008 6:50PM]

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?

[stefan @ May 13th 2008 7:18PM]

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.

[egokick @ May 13th 2008 7:57PM]

true, but the big ones need cleaning often, mould and other bacteria can reduce the amount of power output drastically.

[tom @ May 13th 2008 9:45PM]

Is he David Copperfield?

[Jordan @ May 14th 2008 12:18AM]

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...

[phoomp @ May 14th 2008 12:04PM]

It's a prototype. Prototypes are always ugly.

[Brad @ Jun 19th 2008 6:07PM]

@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.

[ByronGman @ May 13th 2008 5:07PM]

It would seem that about 1/10 of a second later that guy got his hand sliced off....


Or at least scratched lol.....

[Brian @ May 13th 2008 5:08PM]

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... :(

[Sim @ May 13th 2008 5:10PM]

put them in the medians of heavily traveled roads the cars and trucks would power them.

[TomTom2007 @ May 13th 2008 5:32PM]

even better, put them wind turbines on every car, train, bike... the possibilities are endless...

[Low Ranked @ May 13th 2008 5:55PM]

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.

[BowserUSC @ May 13th 2008 6:40PM]

I'm sure there are tall buildings where wind speeds are much higher than on the ground. Could put them there.

[quandmeme @ May 13th 2008 7:02PM]

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.

[Nick Catalano @ May 13th 2008 8:44PM]

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

[Nick Catalano @ May 13th 2008 8:48PM]

Correction, UIC, not U of C

[Fletcher @ May 14th 2008 3:11AM]

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)!

[Sim @ May 13th 2008 5:08PM]

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.

[mark @ May 13th 2008 5:17PM]

only getting 200 watts in 20mph winds is pathetic. I don't know what engadget is on about by calling them 'superpoweful'

[RWD fan @ May 13th 2008 5:22PM]

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

[mark @ May 13th 2008 5:26PM]

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

[Erendrake @ May 13th 2008 5:48PM]

looking at the picture and then looking at the stats can be misleading. i believe the 200 watts is from one turbine.

[Steve A. @ May 13th 2008 5:48PM]

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

[h8rain @ May 13th 2008 5:24PM]

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.

[whatishalo? @ May 13th 2008 5:26PM]

" Plus it would make the Prius even uglier."

Is that even possible??

[OSnix*-geek @ May 13th 2008 5:28PM]

clown car-esque even.

[Bill Brasky @ May 13th 2008 5:31PM]

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.

[MBS @ May 13th 2008 7:27PM]

Wonder if we can power that turbine with the "whoosh" from when that joke went right over Bill Brasky's head.

[Jarhead2012 @ May 13th 2008 8:55PM]

neeeeeeeeeeeeeow!

[Jordan @ May 14th 2008 12:22AM]

Since he'll be going over 20 mph it would be greater than 200 wats. However probably still not enough. Still, a good concept.

[tin bucket @ May 20th 2008 8:54AM]

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.

[John @ May 13th 2008 5:31PM]

"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).

[Aaron @ May 13th 2008 8:25PM]

Pretty difficult to take you seriously when you misspell "difference" and can't find the SHIFT key on your keyboard.

[bondsbw @ May 13th 2008 9:10PM]

P = I * V

A varying current results in varying power output when applied at a constant voltage. They were correct in what they said.

[whatishalo? @ May 13th 2008 5:31PM]

Put them on a VW bug and people would think they were stock...(though not very effective on a gas powered car)

[Homeboy @ May 13th 2008 5:31PM]

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?

[ohng @ May 13th 2008 5:38PM]

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.

[Lunkwill @ May 13th 2008 5:42PM]

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.

[madgamer @ May 13th 2008 5:40PM]

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.

[jkedrummer @ May 13th 2008 6:27PM]

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

[TouchSky @ May 13th 2008 9:28PM]

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.

[deep @ May 13th 2008 5:42PM]

I knew Beenies would come back in style!!!

[disco_delite @ May 13th 2008 5:46PM]

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!"

[Stem $ell @ May 13th 2008 5:47PM]

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....