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Living Inside A Giant Wind Turbine
A reader writes: "New Scientist has an article about buildings that incorporate numerous wind turbines. These neat office blocks can generate much of the own energy and the design of the building actually makes them more power efficient that regular turbines."
And you think that your job blows?
It seems it would only really be workable with really big buildings. In light of recent events how many people are going to be happy working in tall buildings?
It'll never take off.
324006
AFAIK, wind turbines generate considerable low-frequency noise. Unless this problem is seriously addressed, such a building would be somehow uncomfortable.
Though, wind flowing through a thight agglomeration of skyscrapers generates noise anyway %-)
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Finally a use for all the hot air my PHB produces.....
Oh arse
What happens during tornado/hurricane/santa-ana-style winds? Sure, they can turn the props off (although won't they break?) but what about the shape of the building "focussing" the wind down near the ground?
324006
I'm a great fan.
So they say the street noise would make the noise of the generators less of a problem. But they also want to build these into apartment buildings - where during the night at least, people will want things to be quiet. Do they turn them off in the night?
I am also wondering about the output of these things. Since they can't be turned to face the wind, I guess you can only use them where you have a more or less steady wind in one main direction. I am not sure this is really useful in many places. And then, you need a lot of free space around such a building, otherwise you won't get a lot of wind into the propellers in the first place. So I'm not really sure if this is such a hot idea.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
As far as this article is concerned, I don't see this design going into the replacement for the WTC. Buildings today are carefully designed to obstruct as little wind as possible. Having giant turbines between two buildings over an avenue would place massive forces on the buildings. It's hard enough designing skyscrapers, I doubt the designers are keen to add extra force to compensate for.
But what about one of the other problems with turbine generated power? Namely birds being killed by flying through the path of the turbines. Can you imagine sitting at a redlight beside one of these buildings and suddenly having the front half of a pigeon land on your windshield?
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
This is an excellent idea; office blocks have to be some of the most power hungry buildings there are, and this could really cut down on energy/natural resource usage, pollution etc.
I would have to imagine that even once maintenance is taken care of, the energy savings this could make would quickly pay for the initial setup cost.
My only concern is the noise - the article suggests that noise may be damped by insulation, however given that rural turbines are criticised for noise pollution, I suspect that the effect of sound insulation is still not going to be enough to make it a pleasant working environment. When the small fridge in the corner of our office starts whirring occasionally (solved by a swift kick) that tiny noise soon becomes irritating. Imagine even a supposedly acceptable but constant hum all day, every day. This could really have a bad effect on the nerves of workers inside the building.
Traffic in cities would also drown out most of the noise, he suggests.
Right. And I would suggest he's wrong. Traffic might still be the prevailing noise, but I sincerely doubt that the sound signals are such that the sum of the sounds will be the same as the traffic by itself. It may not be overtly noticable, but this would increase the baseline noise in the city.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
What I would like to know is, if we adopt wind turbines wholesale, what the effect will be on the local climate?
A good wind turbine takes up to 45% of the kinetic energy out of the wind. In built up areas, just think, the lower winds would result in increased build-up of pollution from vehicles.
What will it do to weather patterns if we significantly alter the flow of air around the place?
The presence of wind generators near vehicles will result in the vehicles having to expend more energy to displace the air around them since the wind turbines will be causing extra resistance. Since no system is 100% efficient, more energy will have to be expended by the vehicles than is reclaimed from the turbines.
What will happen to passers-by if one sheds a blade?
Will any country ever build buildings that large again in light of recent events in the USA?
This isn't a troll or flame. I would just like some answers...
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Hum. Maybe that will finally keep my overclocked system from crashing...
Me! Me! Can I put my ATX Tower open in front of it?
Wind turbines in rural areas are often criticised for detracting from the landscape and for generating noise pollution. Stankovic says noise insulation around the turbines could dampen sound. Traffic in cities would also drown out most of the noise, he suggests.
Engineer 1: Wind power is such a good resource, I wish there was some way for us to tap into it.
Enginner 2: Yeah, but they are loud and ugly and they piss people off. Where can we put them?
Engineer 1: Hmmm, good point. Wait, how about in the middle of a city? They are already ugly and loud, nobody would ever know the difference.
Engineer 2: That's a great idea. We could even incorporate them into the buildings themselves. We'll call it a new paradigm. I've always wanted to use that word.
Several problems with this idea:
1) Take the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, they have a skybridge between them that has to be flexible since the towers move independently. The wind turbines would have to do the same on their buildings.
2) Traffic would not "drown out" the noise. The sound of the turbines would simply add to the overall noise of the city. Especially inside the buildings.
I still think its a great idea to use various means of generating electricity rather than relying on a few huge sources though!
I believe this would be a great design for a New World Trade Center. It's beautiful, energy efficient and large. Definitely almost looks like the WTC (twin tower type design....). It would also prevent power outages from taking out your whole building. It would be a great way to get people and companies to put offices in these buildings.....advertised free or discounted electricity.
I do not fear working in a tall skyscraper because working in a tall building is not what killed these people. I believe it would be impossible to build something that can take the force of these type of blasts. If you do fear working in these type of buildings, well then the terrorists have already won. They want you to be afraid of them and you need to be strong and show them you are not afraid of them.
Gorkman
You know this proposal's gone the moment GreenPeace realizes what happens to pigeons when they get near this thing...
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Not to sound troll-like, but my father and stepmother used to live in the building next to the world financial center, near the former WTC towers. They complained, and rightly so, of the venturi effects created by the structures. You could hear the howl of wind using the elevators in their building, yet it was eerily calm on the other side of the towers. So, you're more right than you think.
just my blog and pix
We all know that buildings sway a lot (several feet at the top). We also all know that electricity can be generated by piezoelectric strips that bend. Has anyone tried running a long piezoelectric strip up a building?
I know they were able to generate electricity from the rising and falling of waves by using piezoelectrics, maybe the same idea would work here.
Travis
Furethermore I believe multiple small fans would be more efficient. Now, IANAAE (I am not an aeronautical engineer) but the total airflow through a large fan's housing is much greater than the amount of airflow that actually pushes the fan (obvious). Many small fans could fill that area more completely and harvest more of the total airflow.
Any thoughts?
Better than snow generators -- the buildings will want to bend on windy days, since the cooling will be localized to the turbine side... Now there's a fun engineering problem!
Damn, you've foiled COBRA's plot for a new weather machine!
GO JOE!
Don't know where they got this statement from:
turbines have a dramtic colling effect on the structure.
This is not true. The turbines would actuall warm the structure. The turbines could only cool the structure if they were self-propelled by some fuel, but the turbines actually slow do the wind. In fact for maximum thermo-dynamic power transfer, the wind flowing through would be losing at least 50% of its umph....
The above statement leads be to believe that nobody is really taking this seriously.
Sure you just throw it in to reverse and it will blow the incoming planes off corse!!
The added efficiency of this design, over that of a typical wind power farm is derived primarily from the curvature of the buildings between which the fans are placed. How cost effective is ti to construct curved buildings? There are certain efficiencies gained with regard to interior area of such a structure, but those benefits are lost due to the rectangular block layout of the cities in which the building sould be constructed. Even with the greater efficiency of the turbines, would the Return of Investment of such a structure have an even remotely reasonable horison, given the added cost of the constructuin (not only of the turbines but if the curved structure)? It doesn't seem so.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Again, no cooling effect. These are adding wind, they are sucking it up and converting it too electricity. Remember the 1st law, conservation of energy.
Dreaming that these things would have a cooling effect is like believing the following:
If you're on a sailboat and blow into the sales, you theoretically move the boat a little bit.
This is really interesting - this is the sort of research that makes me happy to hear about. A lot points out the killing of birds, noise etc. but in reality most of these issues are already being addressed in research. Here in Denmark we have some of the largest windmill parks in the world. One just outside the capital Copenhagen is generating 3% of all the energy used by the city.
. dk/news/webcam.htm
But this could be used on low ground as well. I'm doing some parachuting and when landing you always have to stay clear of buildings. A large hangar could easily produce turbulence up to 300 yards away. If this was a set of urban buildings 4-5 stores high, placed in the correct direction, you could actually place the wind turbine in the end, or in a tunnel connected to the end of the building, to move the turbine it-self away to minimize noise. Great potentials...
Birds... well use a grid or net of some sort.
In time (20-100 years from now) we need to be using 100% pure energy, like wind and sun, fission (when it comes) etc... This is not something we can choose not to! We are running out of fossil fuels, and it will be in our lifetime. (At least I plan to live for some years to come).
Copenhagen/Middelgrunden:
http://www.windpower
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
they can reverse power flow and use them as big fans to keep city dwellers cool.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Why do people think these are going to be loud? Perhaps because people are used to hearing the word "turbines" in the context of jet engines? These are not jet engines. They're not even electric fans. No roar, no hum, not even the whoosh of air. Perhaps an occasional squeak due to bearings that need to be oiled. That's about it.
bp
Using the new Wind Panel design the new Word Trade Center welcomes the US into the next generation of self sustaning cities.
Never before has an office complex given power back to their host city. Now thanks to the rapid removal of the old structures energy efficient structures are taking their place.
Truly, this is a NEW New York.
comment directly in my journal
When I was in college I had a job working as a custodian. Picking up discarded cigarette butts and soda cans outside of the building was bad enough work. I can't even imagine having the job of picking up bird bits from the sidewalk.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Hey Tom,
You know that was in bad taste -- I know you aren't serious because I looked at your webpage but a lot of the kids on slashdot have no idea and are pretty ignorant.
I'm not calling you a troll, it was even mildly funny -- just in poor taste.
-dave
# Hack the planet, it's important.
This design depends on having two towers, which must increase cost, I'd expect. What if a single tower had a couple of "floors" at the top to house some horizontally mounted turbines (of a diameter almost equal to the width of the building)? You might also be able to (partially?) shield them from view.
Government official: Damn, we're paying too much for all this social housing. How can we make more money off of poor people?
Engineer: I know, make them live in power stations.
Deleted
What was that bull about it possibly being more difficult to have such a structure built due to the cost of having to have precise curve? I see strangely shaped building all over the place that are that way for nothing more than aesthetics (sp?). Straight, curved, pyramid or just plain weird, would you want to work in a building that was not laid out precisely? Aren't the tallest buildings in the world (in Singapore?) round, and don't they have a crosswalk that vaguely resembles the cross-struts in the articles concept picture?
Not only do I see this as an excellent idea, but if I owned the Sears Towers in Chicago I would investigate the possibility of such an addition (to provide crosswalks AND power).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Interesting thought here from a non-engineer:
If the buildings experience side effects of unintentional cooling, perhaps this design is, thus, best suited for a warmer environment.
This makes me wonder therefore if there are a variety of possible energy-saving building designs - that are best suited for different environments. What can work best in a given environment to use renewable energy resources? Is there research going on in this area?
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
The engineers say 1 turbine (column between buildings) can cater for 20% (overall) of those two buildings energy. With a ring of buildings, you can generate 40% (overall) of the energy required.
The picture depicted what looked like a 60 storey building, which ain't bad for the UK, where the tallest building is only about 800ft. A circle of 8 of them (The Octagon), with fatter buildings than those depicted in the pictures could hold nearly 50,000 workers, possibly more.
50,000 workers, each of whom uses up 1kW/h, means that the 8 turbine columns could generate 10 - 20MW/h.
I'm not an expert, but perhaps the cooling effect would be from the fact that the structure is shaped to draw in more wind (as opposed to traditional buildings, which some have commented are usually designed to *reduce* the amount of wind).
Maybe the cooling effect of the extra wind between the structures would counter the heating effect of sucking the energy out of the wind?
Stuart.
These types of buildings are not uncommon in NYC, I know of abot a half dozen. Ever seen Superman 3?
The construction costs are not particularly high, as the arch of the building (even inverted) allows greater flexibility and strength on the curved side.
Really, conservation of energy supports the idea of the turbine cooling the building. Or at least the air passing thru the turbine. The turbine is outputting energy in the form of electricity. Where did that energy come from? Primarily the kinetic energy of the wind. Since heat is pretty much a specialized type of kinetic energy, it's not hard to imagine that the turbine would extract some amount of heat from the air.
I'm not an expert in the field, and I can imagine the opposite happening too. The turbine would take kinetic energy out of the air and convert it to both heat in the air and energy in the turbine. But neither case would violate the conservation of energy.
Social security official: If only we could reduce the number of recipients, the system might just work.
Engineer: How about putting rotating blades right into the buildings where they live and work?
1) Rats live large.
2) Point to the dead pigeons and cry "And ye shall ask and ye shall receive!" and write how food surpluses for the homeless are at all time highs...
3) I'm not worried about pigeon bits all over the ground, I'm worried about pigeon bits all over *me*. Imagine going out on a date (yeah, it's a stretch, at least in my case) and you're walking in the moonlight and *splllaaaaattttt*, you both get pigeoned. The good thing would be you could invite her over to your rat's nest to clean up...
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Speaking of birds getting diced, does anyone know where I could find that video clip of dead chickens getting dropped into a jet turbine at 1000 frames per second? It's perhaps one of the creepiest but coolest things ever...
--hongpong.com
Have you ever heard of anything that actually succeeded in reducing the pidgeon population? My suspicion is that pidgeons are the exception to the usual Darwinian theories. No matter how dumb they are or how hard you try to kill them, they just keep breeding and shitting, shitting, shitting.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
We used to build giant wind turbines (read big windmills) for electricity until we sold off that business in the late 80s, I believe to a Swedish company. There was a case where we had a very large turbine(believe it was one of the largest in the world at the time) set up in the midwest. One day, an old ladies house just all of a sudden collapsed. This house was on a hill something like 5 miles away, and it was strucurally fine. As it turned out, the natural sound waves that were produces by the slow spinning blades happened to be just the right frequency to cause the house to collapse. Who would have thunk? Obviously, no one.
The moral of the story is nothing is free and totally clean. Everything has a side effect. It wouldn't be such a good thing to place one of these in a city and then 6 months later have a dozen buildings 5 miles away go toppling down. The idea is great, but that doesn't mean its the right thing to do.
Placing a turbine in the flow of the hot air would just slow it down. In order to compensate for this you would have to apply even more power into the intake fans blowing cool air into the buildings. Because the motors and power systems aren't 100% efficient, the total efficiency goes down and you consume even more power.
Willy
I do like the conveyor belt and the murals depicting mediterranean scenes, though.
The reason was because the tunnel and fans made this horrible moaning sound when the wind was blowing (i.e. all the time), and this led to there being an increased amount of people with depression
Not just the audible moaning...
It has been known for a long time that subsonics cause unease and fear - without producing a conscious phenomenon on which to hang the feeling. A few minutes of 14 Hz, for instance, has been claimed to be able to stampeed a crowd.
Wind turbines produce a LOT of sound energy at subsonic frequencies - primarily number-of-blades times revolutions-per-second and harmonics of that.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way