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