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  • From: FranandDave Nokes <fdnokes@hotmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fw: Wow! Wind Power Without the Blades
  • Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:54:27 -0500







Wind Power Without the Blades




By Alyssa Danigelis

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.

Each base is slightly different, and is sloped so that rain will funnel into
the areas between the concrete to help plants grow wild. These bases form a
sort
of public park space and serve a technological purpose. Each one contains a
torque generator that converts the kinetic energy from the stalk into energy
using shock absorber cylinders similar to the kind being developed by
Cambridge,
Massachusetts-based Levant Power
.
Wind isn’t constant, though, so Núñez-Ameni says two large chambers below the
whole site will work like a battery to store energy. The idea is based on
existing hydroelectric pumped storage systems. Water in the upper chamber
will
flow through turbines to the lower chamber, releasing stored energy until the
wind starts up again.


The top of each tall stalk has an LED lamp that glows when the wind is
blowing -- more intensely during strong winds and not all when the air is
still.
The firm anticipates that the stalks will behave naturally, vibrating and
fluttering in the air.
“Windstalk is completely silent, and the image associated with them is
something we're already used to seeing in a field of wheat or reeds in a
marsh.
Our hope is that people living close to them will like to walk through the
field
-- especially at night -- under their own, private sky of swarming stars,”
said
Núñez-Ameni.
After completion, a Windstalk should be able to produce as much electricity
as a single wind turbine, with the advantage that output could be increased
with
a denser array of stalks. Density is not possible with conventional turbines,
which need to be spaced about three times the rotor's diameter in order to
avoid
air turbulence. But Windstalks work on chaos and turbulence so they can be
installed much closer together, said Núñez-Ameni.
Núñez-Ameni also reports that the firm is currently working on taking the
Windstalk idea underwater. Called Wavestalk, the whole system would be
inverted
to harness energy from the flow of ocean currents and waves. The firm’s
long-term goal is to build a large system in the United States, either on
land
or in the water.
Link: http://news.discovery.com/tech/wind-power-without-the-blades.html



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  • [permaculture] Fw: Wow! Wind Power Without the Blades, FranandDave Nokes, 10/19/2010

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