Sci/Tech Wind Power Without the Blades

Jedimindtrixxx

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Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi. Atelier DNA’s "Windstalk"project came in second in the Land Art Generator competition a contest sponsored by Madsar to identify the best work of art that generates renewable energy from a pool of international submissions.

The proposed design calls for 1,203 "“stalks," each 180-feet high with concrete bases that are between about 33- and 66-feet wide. The carbon-fiber stalks, reinforced with resin, are about a foot wide at the base tapering to about 2 inches at the top. Each stalk will contain alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material, which generates a current when put under pressure. In the case of the stalks, the discs will compress as they sway in the wind, creating a charge.

“The idea came from trying to find kinetic models in nature that could be tapped to produce energy,” explained Atelier DNA founding partner Darío Núñez-Ameni.

In the proposal for Masdar, the Windstalk wind farm spans 280,000 square feet. Based on rough estimates, said Núñez-Ameni the output would be comparable to that of a conventional wind farm covering the same area.

“Our system is very efficient in that there is no friction loss associated with more mechanical systems such as conventional wind turbines,” he said.


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Yay for future (if it works)
 
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Dan

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can we paint them green and make them look like palm trees? Cause that would be cool. :)
 

tom_mai78101

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can we paint them green and make them look like palm trees? Cause that would be cool. :)

Not bad of an idea. More leaves artificially added to the stalks = more surface area to capture the winds = more energy.
 

Dan

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Not bad of an idea. More leaves artificially added to the stalks = more surface area to capture the winds = more energy.

Yeah but apparently their design has it going to mere inches at the top... so I suppose there is some reason that they don't want it to be too stalky at the top.

Also, the bases could be a geometrical shape that actually uses space efficiently instead of ovals... I'm not sure that this one is completely optimized with respect to space, but still more than turbines are. The thing about turbines is that they are using their blades and the spinning motion to produce energy. Since this requires simple kinetic energy to form compression--tech that we haven't had before-- one would assume that they could optimize their design.

If it truly is optimized already, it sure is a bit counter intuitive for several reasons.
 

T.s.e

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Not bad of an idea. More leaves artificially added to the stalks = more surface area to capture the winds = more energy.

I don't think that surface area actually matters much since it works by compressing the piezoelectric material instead of capturing kinetic energy. The force per area of material is still the same so you can make the stalks taller instead of wider, making them more aesthetic but still energy efficient. Very cool idea.
 

Inflicted

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oh that looks like her hairy...

Lol, that looks really sick. Kinda what I thought future grass would look like when I was a kid.

Its a way better method than having those huge rotating towers imo.
 

Zakyath

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it has to be a LOT better than the wind power we have today, which is ineffecient, unreliable and expensive, to be good.
 

Jedimindtrixxx

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it has to be a LOT better than the wind power we have today, which is ineffecient, unreliable and expensive, to be good.

"In the proposal for Masdar, the Windstalk wind farm spans 280,000 square feet. Based on rough estimates, said Núñez-Ameni the output would be comparable to that of a conventional wind farm covering the same area."

all of the energy without any of the bird killing
 

Accname

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Why would it be a waste of money?
They run by themselfs, you pay only once and they will produce energy for the rest of time. (given that nobody will intentionally try to break them or no kind of catastrophe will destroy them)

They do not need to produce a ton of energy directly but if you sum it up over time you get a pretty good deal.
 

s3rius

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The question is how much maintainance they require and how high production cost is compared to a usual wind turbine.

But "alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material" sounds a bit more expensive than a few blades.

But clicking on the link in the first post... this thing could easily be made an attraction. Make it a part, have the stalks glow at night and let people buy souvenirs to sponsor everything :)
 

Narks

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Yeah but apparently their design has it going to mere inches at the top... so I suppose there is some reason that they don't want it to be too stalky at the top.

Also, the bases could be a geometrical shape that actually uses space efficiently instead of ovals... I'm not sure that this one is completely optimized with respect to space, but still more than turbines are. The thing about turbines is that they are using their blades and the spinning motion to produce energy. Since this requires simple kinetic energy to form compression--tech that we haven't had before-- one would assume that they could optimize their design.

If it truly is optimized already, it sure is a bit counter intuitive for several reasons.

Might be that whatever is underneath the circle has to be circular by design - like a spinning turbine or something.
 

JerseyFoo

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Why would it be a waste of money?
They run by themselfs, you pay only once and they will produce energy for the rest of time. (given that nobody will intentionally try to break them or no kind of catastrophe will destroy them)

They do not need to produce a ton of energy directly but if you sum it up over time you get a pretty good deal.
Let's say a wind power plant and a coal power plant both cost $1,000,000 to build. Leaving maintenance out of the equation, as you are, assume the coal power plant consumes $10,000 worth of coal per month, and that they both fall apart in 50 years. The coal power plant also produces 1000 Mwh, while the wind power plant produces 50 Mwh. That's more than fair isn't it?

Over 50 years...
Coal costs ($10,000*12*50) $6 million. Produces 600 Gwh. $10 / Mhw.
Wind costs $1 million. Produces 30 Gwh. $33 / Mhw.

Consider the basics. 4 litres of gasoline (a 'fossil fuel') can propel a car weighing 2,000 kg about 30 miles using a inefficient relatively-cheap engine. A 20 mph wind blowing against a 4 m^2 sail would likely not even move the car... and it isn't even converted.

Wind is just a natural force of the Earth. Just because it's there doesn't mean it should be harvested, and certainly doesn't mean harvesting it is in any way effective or a good idea. It's a stupid assumption, and a dangerous one considering it gives confidence to the same idiots that think we should get rid of nuclear. Rivers, explosions, magnetic force, and healthy slaves can push cars; breezes can't. Is it really that hard to understand?
 

Accname

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For the coal power plant you have to keep in mind that the coal will eventually run out, prices for coal are going to rise in the future, the pollution it creates, which needs to be cleaned as well, the people who work there, the people who work in the coal mines which is a dangerous and unhealthy work, etc etc.
There are many things you have to worry about in a coal power plant or a nuclear power plant, etc, those wind power plants are just set up and run on their own and you sit back and get energy out of it.
 

Zakyath

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For the coal power plant you have to keep in mind that the coal will eventually run out, prices for coal are going to rise in the future, the pollution it creates, which needs to be cleaned as well, the people who work there, the people who work in the coal mines which is a dangerous and unhealthy work, etc etc.
There are many things you have to worry about in a coal power plant or a nuclear power plant, etc, those wind power plants are just set up and run on their own and you sit back and get energy out of it.


until it stops blowing. i agree with coal not being the optimal source of energy, but windpower is really, really inefficiant, expensive and unreliable. if anything we should build more nuclear power plants
 

phyrex1an

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Coal costs ($10,000*12*50) $6 million. Produces 600 Gwh. $10 / Mhw.
Wind costs $1 million. Produces 30 Gwh. $33 / Mhw.,
Why don't you try with numbers from the real world instead? You will get a different result.

Your numbers are off by a factor of 10 for coal and a factor of 3 for wind. In other words, they are about the same price. Dirty coal is cheaper than wind but not by very much. Clean coal is generally considered to be more expensive.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
Watch out for the EIA numbers, they add 3% of the actual running costs to fossil fuel powered plants, motivated by increased costs of carbon release rights. It doesn't change the actual order of things though, and the prediction that costs of release rights will increase is probably right. It's kinda strange that they have included it in the numbers when they didn't include other governmental factors such as subsidies.

You can pretty much say that the lifetime costs of the electricity generated by coal and wind are roughly equivalent, but that wind has a higher up front costs per expected MW and a lower cost per installation.
 
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