Wind power is one of those things that inherently sounds good, has tended to be a job for governments and utility companies. Few individuals have the space to erect the monstrous windmills that we’ve seen in America’s coastal areas.
But that may be changing. A company called Be-Wind is currently raising funds through Kickstarter to gear up for a production run of a product called the Urban Wind Turbine.
This turbine looks different from what you might expect. Instead of long, lithe blades facing the wind and spinning vertically, this turbine uses a pair of horizontally-spinning corkscrews attached to a rig that pivots to face into the wind.
The turbine can generate power in speeds as slow as 6 miles per hour, according to BE-Wind’s materials, and only needs a few square feet of space for setup. You could easily install a small farm of them atop any large-sized flat roof.
If you can afford it.
While the Urban Wind Turbine’s $10,000 price tag is lower than the millions power companies pay for their towering windmills, it’s still $10,000.
But, if the design works, we may see the price come down.
Related articles
- Kites Could Harvest Wind Power More Efficiently Than Wind Turbines (news.softpedia.com)
- Wind power – missing when needed, harmful where produced (autonomousmind.wordpress.com)
- Germans follow Italians, Americans and Canadian and others to Pursue Kite Generated Wind Power (nextbigfuture.com)
- Sail-inspired wind turbine doubles efficiency without blades (dvice.com)
- The World’s Most Powerful Wind Turbine Has Blades That Are Over 24 Stories Tall (inhabitat.com)
- Windfarms: is community ownership the way ahead? (guardian.co.uk)
