Vertical Axis Wind Turbine With Push and Pull:

“Sterling D. Allan writes ‘After 10 years of prototyping, wind tunnel testing, patenting, and tweaking, Ron Taylor of Cheyenne (windy) Wyoming is ready to take his vertical axis wind turbine into commercial production. Design creates pull on the back side contributing to 40%+ wind conversion efficiencies. Because it spins at wind speed, it doesn’t kill birds, and it runs more quietly. It also doesn’t need to be installed as high, and it can withstand significantly higher winds (can generate in winds up to 70 mph, compared to ~54 mph tops for propeller designs). Generating costs estimated at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, putting it in the lead pocket-book-wise not just of wind and solar, but of conventional power as well. Production prototype completion expected in 5-7 months.’

This is somewhat controversial. Folks reading the article on Slashdot have commented that this isn’t really a new design, and that it won’t scale from small to large scale use. But either way – even if it’s only able to supply power for a small residential customer, the claimed improvements are very interesting.

(Sorry for the lack of posts this past week. I’ve been out of state working with a group of folks on the Moravian-Episcopal Full Communion plans. We were meeting at a site that didn’t have Internet access. I did get a lot of “dead-tree” reading done though.)

(Via Slashdot: Science.)