Traditional micro-wind turbines are plagued by problems. The "Windbelt", which you can easily build yourself, does not have them.
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The output of a classic micro-windmill is very low because there is less wind and more turbulence in a built-up environment – they hardly deliver enough energy to power a lightbulb. Because of the low yield, micro-wind turbines are also much more expensive for every delivered kilowatt-hour of electricity. In urban environments, they might never deliver the energy that was needed to make them.
Dangerous
Miniature windmills are noisy and cause vibrations. They require more maintenance than solar panels, get damaged faster, or they damage the roof. Last but not least, they can be dangerous. Windmills can fall over, catch fire (lightning!), lose sails or fling ice around. These nuisances and risks are acceptable in sparsely populated places (after all, nuclear energy is also not exactly without risks…). The installation of thousands of small windmills on roofs in cities would however not be a very good idea. The concept might be interesting, but the technology is not ready yet.
New design
Young American inventor Shawn Fayne has designed a wind power device that does not have most of these disadvantages: the windbelt. It’s the first micro-wind machine that does not try to miniaturise the concept of a big turbine, but instead takes a completely different view; the machine does not include any mechanically moving parts, but makes use of vibration.
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The inventor was inspired by the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington in 1940. How exactly the power station works, can be seen on the website of Popular Mechanics, which laurelled the invention as one of the ten breakthroughs of 2007. The inventor also has his own website, and offers free building plans (registration required). See also this instructable.
Cheap and easy
Small prototypes of the wind membrane (it can not technically be called a windmill) have produced 40 milliwatts with a wind speed of 3 Beaufort. This makes the device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best micro-wind turbines on the market today. That profit is made because with a traditional windmill lots of energy is lost by the friction of mechanically moving parts.
Noise
The machine would cost just a few dollars and is easy to make and repair your self. Frayne designed the Windbelt during a stay in Haiti, where houses are often still illuminated by unhealthy kerosene lamps. The prototype makes it possible to light a couple of LED-lights or to play a radio. Larger versions of the Windbelt are possible, but in that case the problem of noise emerges again (like the wind can make a string instrument ‘sing’).
However, the other drawbacks of micro-wind turbines aren’t there. Of course, even then the potential of these kinds of low-tech energy plants is very small, and they should be combined with a much lower energy usage.
© Kris De Decker (edited by Vincent Grosjean)(es)(nl)
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