By Zak Stone

It may be full of potential, but wind power is still a young industry with many design challenges that prevent it from scaling up. From an environmental perspective, how can designers and entrepreneurs lower the technology's impact on local ecosystems? Bird populations in particular, can be harmed by the swiftly spinning turbines. And how can wind power be brought to a wider variety of landscapes, including urban ones, as opposed to the rural, mountainous, or desert areas where you typically find fields of hulking turbines?

A new manufacturer thinks its figured out the answers to these two questions with a new turbine design called the Windstrument. They're hailing the product as "a truly affordable wind energy system," that's "quiet and powerful, bird safe, and scalable."

This last attribute is particularly compelling. The technology is compact and unobtrusive enough to be installed in an urban area for smaller-scale use. For homes or businesses who don't require much power, a pole with a single, four-foot turbine would suffice, and a rooftop mounting option is available. But for the power needs of a whole neighborhood or an industrial complex, for example, many turbines can be added to a single pole, a configuration the company calls a "Windorchard."

The shape of the turbine's blades are called conical helicoids, inspired by the design of racing sails and capable of sustaining their functionality even in fierce winds. And unlike other turbines, the Windstrument's design disperses the air in such a way that birds don't get sucked in. In nearly two years of trials in a wetland heavily populated by birds, not a single one was harmed.

So far it seems the biggest problem for the company is scaling up their own production. Right now, they're just able to produce "several thousand turbines a month. Our goal is to quadruple that, at a minimum, over the next year," according to their website. Unified Energies International, the Michigan-based firm behind the Windstrument, just announced this summer that they had patented the design and were working with a plastics company to bring the product to market.

9 Comments

1. 1. dwbd 11:58 AM 10/14/12

   Another SCIAM article hyping some nutty Greenie Energy SCAM. Not one article on SCIAM on Focus Fusion, Robert Bussard's IEC fusion, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR), the IFR, Accelerator Driven Subcritical Fission, cheap, simple, super-safe Molten Salt Reactors like David Leblanc's DMSR or factory produced Small Modular Reactors, including the Pebble Bed.
   
   The super-rich Robber Barons have been funneling 10's of $billions into greenie ENGO's and Mass Media to prevent the development of free and independent democratic energy and hype up every nutty scam that won't stand a chance of making a dent in their Big Carbon energy hegemony. All part of their effort to protect and expand Globalism - the source of their outrageous power & wealth. The New World Order.

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2. 2. quantumxdt 12:14 PM 10/14/12

   Any comment on the power to work ratio? How big of a generator will an "aesthetically appealing" turbine drive in or around my home. Is it mountable on my home? Again Plastic..why not carbon fiber as plastics are petroleum based >.<. Carbon fiber can be resourced from a waste product I imagine. Working height of a useable turbine in urban areas?
   Gah! So many questions come on guys your journalists for crying out loud! Do your dag-nab-it job! :)
   
   And another thing look at the comment above this one ...where is all the data/ research on nukes! (although again potential of environmental damages from nuclear)
   Sciam don't be so fail ..Hey Nature your part of this as well. What you guys are being throttled or censored ...by who? Get the story out there Bros & Hos or get off the job!
   
   Cheers :P

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3. 3. tedre123 in reply to dwbd 03:29 AM 10/16/12

   What are you talking about?? Wait a minute, please don't answer that.

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4. 4. bongobimbo 09:38 AM 10/16/12

   Thank you, Tedre! Gobbledygook needs to be ignored.

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5. 5. jgrosay 05:23 PM 10/16/12

   You can go to Lefeuvreturbine in YouTube for another exciting new design in wind power. Enjoy it!

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6. 6. jerryd 08:09 PM 10/16/12

   
   While dwbd is right that this is clearly a scam and won't produce any useable power/$, that is all it is. his rants against RE is just that of a troll and most who read here already know.
   
   Sadly too much of these small RE are scams so one needs to be careful. Join a group of actual users of the tech you are thinking about and they will help guide you around the scams to good equipment.
   
   For wind generators join a RE yahoogroup or other and for those who want to really learn or even build your own which for now is the best way, read this guy's sites as the best quality source on small practical wind generators
   
   
   Hugh Piggott's old home page
   
   scoraigwind.com
   
   I have nothing to do with him other than happy someone has put up excellent info on cost effective WG's. I'm building a higher tech version but his is excellent and can be made by anyone that is handy. Mine won't be ready for over a yr because I have to do long term testing before I'll sell mine.
   
   
   
   Sadly it would cost less to build a good wind gen than this piece of junk shown here that violates basic physics in so many ways. And why doesn't SA know this? Why are they putting up such scams?
   
   Decent normal 2-5 blade, preferably 3 bladed for best eff, payback wind generators in home, building sizes put 20' above surrounding are an excellent solution in many places. In fact they have made excellent ones in the 30's that are still running fine like Jacob's, etc!!!! It's not new tech other than some material and other small details.

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7. 7. jerryd in reply to jgrosay 08:13 PM 10/16/12

   ''You can go to Lefeuvreturbine in YouTube for another exciting new design in wind power. Enjoy it!''
   
   This is also a scam so don't bother. You need both torque and speed in a WG's to make power and neither this one or the article one do either.

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8. 8. bucketofsquid 05:37 PM 10/23/12

   Perhaps if we gathered the hate of discussion posters we could power the world.
   
   Wind power is not a young industry because it goes back to the early 1400s. When solar and wind energy have storage capable of holding the energy needed for extended times of low wind and little light at the same cost as coal, then the 2 options will make sense. Until that time it is just too expensive.

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9. 9. RobJay in reply to jerryd 11:37 PM 10/23/12

   I have studied Piggots designs - same old 3 blades, extremely heavy, take welding expertise and months to build, kills birds and if the wood isn't flawless, they blow up.
   
   And about the 'scam' remarks - there are pics on the website of them testing this at Detroit testing ground wind tunnel. The same one Boeing, Toyota, Ford Motors and MIT use.
   
   Violates which basic laws of physics and how? It looks like a perfect wind capturing device- incredibly so.
   
   And.. where is your video?

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