Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Water From Wind

Posted by kdawson on from the and-power-too dept.

ghostcorps recommends a writeup in The Australian by columnist Phillip Adams about a new windmill design that extracts water from air. The article gives few details of how it works, because patent protection is not yet in place, but what is revealed sounds promising. "[Max] Whisson's design has many blades, each as aerodynamic as an aircraft wing, and each employing 'lift' to get the device spinning... They don't face into the wind like a conventional windmill; they're arranged vertically, within an elegant column, and take the wind from any direction... The secret of Max's design is how his windmills, whirring away in the merest hint of a wind, cool the air as it passes by... With three or four of Max's magical machines on hills at our farm we could fill the tanks and troughs, and weather the drought. One small Whisson windmill on the roof of a suburban house could keep your taps flowing. Biggies on office buildings, whoppers on skyscrapers, could give independence from the city's water supply. And plonk a few hundred in marginal outback land — specifically to water tree-lots — and you could start to improve local rainfall."

4 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. Interested.... by SQLGuru · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Things I would like to know:

    1. Does this design perform better than other windmill designs (for generation).
    2. What will this do to the atmospheric conditions?
    3. If everyone has one....will it no longer rain?

    Layne

    1. Re:Interested.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I do not believe this is a scam - roughly 15 years ago or so a bunch of guys and me built a couple of scale models of vertical mills with aerofoil blades generating lift, the mill both faced windward in whatever direction the wind decided to come from as well as spun faster than a bat out of hell to put it mildly, quite a lot faster than the windspeed if built correctly is quite possible - These mills will basically blaze away!!!

      Unfortunately we never got around to putting any form of electricity generation equipment or water/warmpumps rotor concept onto them as we planned (maelstroems/turbolence in the water to extract the potential energy)

        - We have for years been putting off finishing the half built full size mill parked in the basement, maybe it's time to find the right bearings that can take the correct angle of pressure etc. and slam that hunk of junk together and start generating some $$$ from the savings as well as doing something right for the environment.

      And the neat thing is that we have independent witnesses from several countries who can back us up regarding what we built and the principles involved so there will be no patent BS to stop us from doing whatever we'd like with our concept.

      So No - I do not for one second believe this might be a scam, but I hope the guy simply decides to share his idea freely as his earnings will be far higher than mere money when the chips fall. Heck he could surely make quite some cash if he spoke to the right people - no need for patents - just get production started - If the concept is as revulutionizing as the article mentions then the need will far exceed production capabilities anyway - plenty to take from.

      He could in life as well as later be remembered as a pioneer - And if the concept is realized as a stroke of genious - people might just listen to the next thing he might hatch.

      Just my two cents...

  2. Free Dry Land! by nbannerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Excellent, so now anyone living near, but not in a city can enjoy a barren landscape when the rain no longer falls.

    Alright, sarcasm aside, surely there are bound to be some less-than-good effects on the surrounding enviroment if large amounts of water are 'sucked' out of the atmosphere prematurely?

  3. Re:Something doesn't add up... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, condensing water from the air to water trees, from which some of the water will transpire back to the atmosphere, might improve local rainfall? Is that like the "lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume" line? :)

    No, it's more that this windmill does what trees in a rainforest are already doing. Israel noticed this some time ago, and spent most of the 1960s and 1970s on something similar, though theirs was based on water pumped out of salinated lakes and the Medditeranian, and placed in desalination tanks. The fresh water was used for tree farms, that created more rainfall by cooling the air.

    Therefore, the windmill in this situation is just a placeholder for what the trees will do anyway once they're mature enough.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.