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posted by martyb on Friday September 30 2016, @01:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the gonna-need-a-really-big-battery dept.

Typhoons are generally associated with mass destruction, but a Japanese engineer has developed a wind turbine that can harness the tremendous power of these storms and turn it into useful energy. If he's right, a single typhoon could power Japan for 50 years.

Atsushi Shimizu is the inventor of the world's first typhoon turbine—an extremely durable, eggbeater-shaped device that can not only withstand the awesome forces generated by a typhoon, it can convert all that power into useable energy. Shimizu's calculations show that a sufficiently large array of his turbines could capture enough energy from a single typhoon to power Japan for 50 years.

Less efficient that traditional turbines, but built more rugged to survive a typhoon.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @02:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @02:18AM (#408205)

    A very efficient engine it can be powered by the sun or basically anywhere that there is a slight heat difference between two locations and can generate quite a bit of power from almost nothing. I'm surprised it's not used more often. It seems like it would be rather easy to direct sunlight at this thing or put it in windy environments and have it efficiently generate power.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:03AM (#408219)

    can generate quite a bit of power from almost nothing

    You fail Thermodynamics 101.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:12AM (#408221)

      matter to energy is kinda something from almost nothing when done right.

      zero point energy is nothing... kinda.

    • (Score: 1) by tekk on Friday September 30 2016, @04:38AM

      by tekk (5704) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 30 2016, @04:38AM (#408243)

      Note that he said almost nothing, not nothing: Stirling Engines are known for being ridiculously efficient, but generating approximately no power in absolute terms.

      • (Score: 1) by tekk on Friday September 30 2016, @04:40AM

        by tekk (5704) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 30 2016, @04:40AM (#408246)

        or to clarify, not that it generates little power in absolute terms, but it has a poor power:weight ratio, making we've tended to use other engines.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 30 2016, @03:30AM (#408224)

    What about the Seebeck effect?

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday September 30 2016, @04:40AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Friday September 30 2016, @04:40AM (#408245) Journal

    A 1.5 MW solar thermo-mechanical facility, using Stirling engines, opened in the southwestern United States in 2010.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rl1H-53Mks [youtube.com]