The Green Optimistic

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In this consumerism ruled times, the world needs to know ways to do stuff. When electricity generation is predicted to become more expensive (it’s like they predict an invasion of electric vehicles), people need to build their own power generating systems for their independence.

A blog whose articles I read daily, cleanbreak.ca, has published some news about a company from Alberta, Canada (Lancaster Wind Systems) that wants to bring an innovation to the classic and old wind turbines. The company itself hasn’t described the exact method by which they are going to improve the efficiency of the wind turbine, but the main idea is that they’re going to store a few hours of energy in a hydraulic system, so when the wind doesn’t blow, you’ll still have energy, converted at a higher rate.

They only have four wind turbines, which is not much (and probably so are their enegy consumption habits). The four turbines are part of a larger setup made up from 75 of such turbines, helping the power grid of three counties.

Today I found another DIY project for generating alternative energy, by using the wind. It is a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), and it works by the same principle those huge wind turbines do, but they are much more easy and less expensive to build.

The MARS wind turbine is lifted by helium, and it floats at an altitude of 1000 feet above the ground where it can easily capture any kind of winds, whether they’re as slow as 4mph or as fast as 60mph. Speed is not a big problem here.

The Norwegian state oil company StatoilHydro is about to build “Hywind”, the world’s first functional floating wind turbine, and to test it for two years offshore Karmøy. They have developed HyWind based on familiar concrete constructions floating from North Sea oil installations.

Here’s an invention that should capture more of the world’s attention, because it can capture more of the world’s winds. Flodesign’s “jet engine”-shaped wind turbine has a slightly different way of seeing the wind flow, and by this it is three to four times more efficient.

Turkey is set to double the amount of its electricity supplied by wind power with the construction of the biggest wind farm to date. The wind farm in southeast Turkey will have an installed capacity of 135 megawatts (MW) when it is completed in 2009.
General Electric (GE) Energy will be supplying 52 of its latest [...]