There is a new wind generation technology out there but I am waiting to see some real numbers.
From I.F.L.Science:
New Wind Turbine Generates Electricity Without Rotating Blades
This new wind turbine wobbles elegantly in the wind, generating electricity without rotating blades. “It looks like asparagus,” says David Suriol, one of the founders.
A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless has produced a wind turbine that takes advantage of the vortices produced when wind moves around an obstacle.
If you put any object in the path of the wind, it will create an undulating vortex behind the barrier. This is a problem that has plagued engineers for years: bridges have fallen due to wind eddies.
Vortex Bladeless engineers have designed their turbine to take advantage of this vortex. The thin, cone-shaped turbine is made of carbon fiber and fiberglass with the motor at the bottom instead of the top (like traditional turbines) to improve sturdiness. The design ensures that the wind's vortex spins synchronously along the entire cone. “The swirls have to work together to achieve good performance,” Villarreal explains. There is also a ring of magnets at the base of the cone that give the rotations a boost regardless of wind speed.
There are many advantages to the new Vortex design: It is cheaper to manufacture than current pinwheel turbines. Maintenance prices are also lower because there is no friction from mechanically moving parts (e.g., the blades on a traditional turbine), which reduces the need for oiling and bolt replacement. It is completely silent and birds can fly around them safely.
What I am seeing is that the cross section is a lot smaller than a traditional propeller turbine. The motion is a lot more complex - wobbling instead of spinning. Both of these point to lower efficiency when compared to a traditional propeller.
I would love to see wind power simply go away except for areas where conventional power was impossible - wind farms require backup generators running on hot-standby to compensate for lulls in the wind. I predict that this technology will raise a lot of money without publishing a lot of hard numbers. They will build one or two pilot plants (funded with our tax dollars as subsidies) and then quietly fade into bankruptcy.
Do not forget that wind power has quite the dirty little secret - more here and here.
