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posted by n1 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @11:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the gillette-not-impressed dept.

The Guardian reports that Vortex Bladeless has developed a new bladeless wind turbine that promises to be more efficient, less visually intrusive, and safer for birdlife than conventional turbines. Using the principle of natural frequency and vorticity, the turbine oscillates in swirling air caused by the wind bypassing the mast, and then builds exponentially as it reaches the structure's natural resonance. It's a powerful effect that famously caused the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940, footage of which inspired David Yáñez to try to build a structure to harness this energy rather than prevent it. The turbine "floats" on magnets, which as well as significantly amplifying the oscillation, also eliminates any friction and the need for expensive lubricating oils or mechanical parts. "Wind turbines now are too noisy for people's backyard," says David Suriol. "We want to bring wind power generation to people's houses like solar power."

On the minus side the oscillating turbine design will sweep a smaller area and have a lower conversion efficiency. "The best wind turbine will collect around 50% of energy from the wind," says Suriol. "We are close to 40% with bladeless turbines in our wind tunnel laboratory." To offset this disadvantage, "you can put four, five or six 4kW turbines in the space of one conventional turbine, which need 5 meter diameter space around them," he says. In fact, wind tunnel tests have shown they perform even better placed closer together as they benefit from the vortices each of them creates.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 04 2015, @12:22AM

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday June 04 2015, @12:22AM (#191832) Journal

    By your reasoning any act could be considered natural and part of nature. Poisoning animals isn't a typical human trait. Eating animals and deforesting could be construed as typical human activities. Though eating plants and planting trees could also be construed as typical human activities as well. The main difference is that Humans actually have the ability to improve the world around them even though it may not be in their nature. So, poisoning animals isn't a natural human activity. Unless you count Native Americans or other People who used poison to hunt.

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