Green Options

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Walking the floor of WINDPOWER 2008, the annual conference and trade show for the wind energy industry, one couldn’t help but be transfixed by all of the different types of turbines - at least I couldn’t. The wind turbine has become the iconic symbol of clean, renewable energy. But the classic three-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine, with its gracefully swooping blades, has become the symbol of not only renewable energy, but also of environmental consciousness and ecological possibility.

Despite the ubiquity of the three-bladed turbine, the oft-overlooked vertical-axes turbines are making quite a splash in the world of wind energy, especially in small and micro-applications. So what’s all the fuss about? Vertical-axis turbines apparently do not suffer from some of the same problems that plague small wind applications in urban settings including, aesthetic concerns, space requirements and sound levels.

Other advantages of vertical-axis turbines:

• Can produce up to 50% more electricity per year than conventional turbines with the same swept area
• Generate electricity at much lower wind speeds, as low as 4 mph (1.5 m/s)
• Will continue to generate power in high wind speeds, up to 130 mph (60m/s) depending on the mode
• Direct-drive units have no gearbox. No gearbox means a more efficient transfer of energy and no leaking oil
• Will not harm wildlife, in terms of bird and bat strikes

Below, I’ll cover some more basic differences and show you a few photos and short videos of some of these turbines I saw down in Houston at WINDPOWER 2008.

Not too many years from now, parents living in the little town of Alumbre, Peru will probably tell their young children that they remember the days before there was electricity. These “old-timers” will talk about how wind was once thought of as the enemy– blowing out the few candles that provided light as they struggled to finish their homework after dark, or while trying to finish weaving a sweater. The kids, like most, will probably shrug off these anecdotes of wisdom from the past, wondering how their parents could ever think of something as wonderful as wind as an enemy.

StatoilHydro, a state-run oil company in Norway, recently announced a 2 year test of a floating 2.3 MW wind turbine off the coast of Norway.

Cables will be used to transmit the power to shore for this $80 million pilot project. The turbine has a height of 65 meters above the sea surface and a weighs 138 tons and will be mounted on a buoy 6 miles off shore.

This technology is unique because the turbine will not be stationary. Three anchors will secure the turbine to the sea floor and can be used at depths ranging from 120 to 700 meters.

“We have drawn on our offshore expertise from the oil and gas industry to develop wind power offshore,” says Alexandra Bech Gjørv, head of New Energy for StatoilHydro.

I took this short video of a new, small vertical axis turbine at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Despite the fact that it sounds quite windy in the video, it really wasn’t. [try to ignore the sounds coming from my very excited dog]. Running time: 50 seconds.

See also: Top 5 Micro Wind Turbines

Not long ago I was visiting my old hometown of Chicago, walking through the streets of Bucktown on my way to my favorite bar (Map Room) when I noticed a cool house on Milwaukee Avenue near Hoyne. This “cool” house had a garden and two wind turbines on the roof (if I had the dough I would purchase two as well–leave ‘em alone on the roof and hope they’ll procreate!). I slowed my gait to check the place out. I sought no more info, as I was excited to get to Map Room.

This weekend, a few months after my trip to Chicago, I was returning some books to my local library. They have a “free magazine” rack near the door so I stopped and grabbed a gardening magazine and a few National Geographics from 2007. When I got home I began flipping through the October 2007 National Geographic which highlights the pros and cons of ethanol (for more read this post from Gas 2.0), and there on the page right after the table of contents was an Ameriprise Financial article about the place I walked past in Bucktown a few months earlier. It is the home of Frank and Lisa Mauceri and their record company Smog Veil Records.

This wind turbine in Denmark went out of control when it’s safety mechanism failed to operate. And the blades went round, and round, and round…until…..

It took developers almost 20 years since the “Wind of Change”, a 1990 power ballad written by Klaus Meine, vocalist of Scorpions, to come up with maglev wind turbines. The new type of wind turbine uses full-permanent magnets to eliminate friction and claims to be 1000x more efficient than the windmill next door. The new wind turbines can produce electricity with wind speed as low as 5Km/h or 3 miles per hour. The technology is [...]

A lot of the time I write on what needs to happen, on the lack of action being taken across the world, and how it is that, without said action, we’re all going to H-E-double-hockey-sticks in a hand basket. This time, I get to write about people who have already done something, and how maybe we can follow in their steps.

An Associated Press article tells of a farmer from Creston, Iowa,

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Home Power magazine has collected information about a wide range of different wind turbines that are available for home or small business use. The 2007 Wind Turbine Buyer’s Guide is a small but information-packed article with a wealth of information about available turbines for small wind systems.

The review has information on 19 different small wind turbines ranging from 7 feet to 56 feet in diameter, including systems for battery charging,

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