12 Days of Xmas: 3 Turbines
by Catherine LaineDecember 28th, 2007
We’re doing the 12 days of Christmas Appropriate Technology Style
Day 3: 3 Turbines
Today we’ve got a Kenyan windmill with bike parts, highway turbines, urban windmills, and more.
1. Second Wind Gets Funds For Wind Data from Earth2Tech
Second Wind, a 27-year-old company based in Somerville, Mass., that’s cornered the market on “wind profiling” (thanks, CNet), has just secured $4 million in second-round funding from Good Energies.
When site developers are planning a wind farm, the most important factor to check for is a strong, consistent wind. This often involves setting up a meteorological tower to collect data over the course of months. Second Wind has developed a whole suite of data-collection technologies that are in use all over the world. And their new Triton Sonic Wind Profiler could make selecting wind farm sites even easier.
2. Kenyan Windmill: Bicycle Parts and Roofing Materials from Afrigadget
4 brothers in Western Kenya have begun solving water problems by creating waterpump windmills out of old bicycle parts and roofing materials. They have created 30 of them and are making good money doing it. This is another story of Africans solving their own problems using local materials
3. Caught on Camera: An Urban Wind Turbine from Treehugger
Duration: 8 secs
A remodeled corner house in San Francisco’s Mission District sports a Skystream 3.7, built by Altira-backed Southwest Wind Power.
4. 2 ideas for harnessing wind from highways
Student design turns highways into windfarms from Inhabitat
Wind power from New Jersey Highways from Inhabitat
5. Chinese Maglev Wind Turbines Enter Mass Production from Treehugger
So, what the heck is a maglev generator? It improves efficiency by using magnets to reduce friction, meaning that turbines could turn with winds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in, or energy-producing, speeds of 3 m/s. The chief developer says this could cut the operational costs of wind farms by up to half, with an overall cost under 0.4 yuan ($US 5 cents) per killowatt hour. Earlier this year, an Arizona based company touted a large-scale maglev turbine, but such technology on that scale has yet to be proved.
6. In case you didn’t get what you wanted for Xmas.
The Best Christmas Toy Ever For 2007: Miniature Windmill By Lehman’s from Treehugger
Related Posts
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Conference Pt 1 [Video]
Link of the Day: Wind Turbine Buyer’s Guide [pdf]
Rooftop Wind Turbine (YouTube)
Wind Turbine With Observation Tower (YouTube)
Epuron Ad - The Wind (YouTube)
