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Inventors of Omnidirectional Wind Turbine Win James Dyson Award (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A spinning turbine that can capture wind traveling in any direction and could transform how consumers generate electricity in cities has won its inventors a prestigious international award and ~$38,000 prize. Nicolas Orellana, 36, and Yaseen Noorani, 24, MSc students at Lancaster University, scooped the James Dyson award for their O-Wind Turbine, which -- in a technological first -- takes advantage of both horizontal and vertical winds without requiring steering.
O-Wind Turbine is a 25cm sphere with geometric vents that sits on a fixed axis and spins when wind hits it from any direction. When wind energy turns the device, gears drive a generator that converts the power of the wind into electricity. The students believe the device, which could take at least five years to be put into commercial production, could be installed on large structures such as the side of a building or balcony, where wind speeds are highest. Dyson, who chose the winners, hailed it as "an ingenious concept." He continued: "Designing something that solves a problem is an intentionally broad brief. It invites talented, young inventors to do more than just identify real problems. It empowers them to use their ingenuity to develop inventive solutions. O-Wind Turbine does exactly that. It takes the enormous challenge of producing renewable energy and using geometry it can harness energy in places where we've scarcely been looking -- cities."
O-Wind Turbine is a 25cm sphere with geometric vents that sits on a fixed axis and spins when wind hits it from any direction. When wind energy turns the device, gears drive a generator that converts the power of the wind into electricity. The students believe the device, which could take at least five years to be put into commercial production, could be installed on large structures such as the side of a building or balcony, where wind speeds are highest. Dyson, who chose the winners, hailed it as "an ingenious concept." He continued: "Designing something that solves a problem is an intentionally broad brief. It invites talented, young inventors to do more than just identify real problems. It empowers them to use their ingenuity to develop inventive solutions. O-Wind Turbine does exactly that. It takes the enormous challenge of producing renewable energy and using geometry it can harness energy in places where we've scarcely been looking -- cities."
Those considering "alternative energy" should also consider mathematics of real energy intensive requirements, like concrete and steel making.
Power a steel plant with a wind farm? You must be joking.
Peak energy demands at the hours after 7pm, will not be met with solar. Wind energy is not reliable in most places. Repairing wind generators is hazardous. What is the safety record of these? Frankly solar and wind is junk, and plays well into Coal interests.
The government should resume the MSRE from 1971 and drop alternative energy subsidies. LFTR can be installed at coal and gas plants.
They are much smaller, and the safety profile is very different from (2000 psi) water reactors. The current regulatory environment has not much relevant to Liquid salt reactors, and they would have to rethink everything. Their main safety philosophy has been the worst, but unlikely events. Fukushima was based on a number of very bad design decisions, including placing backup generators below grade, in a tsunami zone with very low wave barriers. They also shut down the reactors and thus killed their main power output that could run circulation pumps. What happened to grid power when their own backups failed? Do not blame "nuclear" energy on this series of massive design and operational blunders.
Nifty idea and I can see a lot of potential applications, especially when these are used in groups of small or medium size turbines.
Props to these guys for working this out.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
First decent design in quite some time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Nuclear advocates sure don't like being shown that their advocacy is full of holes, do they. :P The word "externalities" stings strongly, and it's their nemesis.
Fortunately it doesn't matter how doggedly they stick to their blind narrative and wishful thinking. The world of renewables is growing steadily without needing their support, and is inexorably turning traditional energy sources non-viable as a business.
Nuclear isn't special in that regard, and is becoming obsolete just like all the rest. The only special thing about it is that it's the least viable of the lot.
Vertical axis wind turbines that work with wind coming from any side have been around for a while (though not as large-scale commercial installations.
The new feature here is that this turbine also works with wind coming from below or above.
Dyson is an innovator, not an inventor. He invented none of the things that make his famous products possible: the bagless vacuum, the bladeless fan, and the airblade hand dryer all existed previously. What he did was made them practical and/or apply a little design and turn them into premium products. Kind of what Apple did with the iPhone.
I'll say this for his vacuums though: we've tried quite a few different bagless designs from various A brands (we provide them to our tenants and we wanted the most maintenance-free option), and so far I would only give the Dyson a passing grade. With many of the others you will spend more time cleaning the air filters than doing any actual vacuuming.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
But, efficiency does not matter, because the source of energy, the wind, is practically free. So it does not matter if you waste 80% of zero cost thing or 60% of zero cost thing.
Its the cost per megawatt, maintenance etc that will determine its usability. Spins on vertical axis, does not need complex steering mechanism. large towers with super heavy horizontal load on top is not needed. It will cut down the cost a lot. Lots of internal wanes that will improve the structural integrity and you can probably get away with cheaper recycled plastic, reinforced with metal strips would be helpful. The same internal vanes prove a lot more of the "skin" to the airflow increasing the drag (and that is good in this case, more drag, more energy leaving the airstream and transferring to the turbine.)
Some shaping of the vanes, adjusting the gaps and passages, may be eject the air upwards etc might improve the design.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact