Ten Times the Turbine
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 11:28
in Physics & Chemistry
Sky Serpant Cost to Develop: $250,000 Time: 9 years Prototype | | | | | Product Today’s largest wind farms are the size of small towns, made up of turbines 30 stories tall with blades the size of 747 wings. Those behemoths produce a great deal of power, but manufacturing, transporting, and installing them is both expensive and difficult, and back orders are common as the industry grows by more than 40 percent a year. The solution, says inventor Doug Selsam, is to think smaller: Capture more power with less material by putting 2, 10, someday dozens of smaller rotors on the same shaft linked to the same generator. read more