{"id":1090,"date":"2011-08-31T10:21:16","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T14:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2015-12-28T22:35:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T03:35:54","slug":"japanese-innovation-could-make-wind-power-cheaper-than-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"Wind Power Cheaper Than Nuclear, soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 31st, 2011<\/p>\n

After the damage caused by the Fukushima disaster, it only makes sense that Japan turn its resources to trying to find another efficient form of clean energy besides nuclear. Research into wind turbine development may have lead to a solution with stunning potential. Wind lenses, rings that go around the outside of a turbine’s blades, can double or even triple the turbine’s power output, bringing wind farms in line with the efficiency and output of nuclear power, without the danger of a meltdown.<\/p>\n

The wind lense works by creating a pocket of low pressure in front of the turbine. As a result, air rushes to the low pressure point, conveniently enough, right through the turbine, increasing the speed of the turbine and ultimately, the amount of power that is put out.
\n
\nIf you want a really good idea of how far-reaching and revolutionary this power might be, let’s look at the potential for wind farm development in the U.S. Using standard turbines, we could produce about a third of the nation’s power by utilizing about 170,000 square miles of high yield wind areas. For scale, that’s about 1\/4th of the size of Alaska. With conventional technology, it might be prohibitive to extend wind farms beyond that size and scope. After all, wind turbines need to be constructed and maintained and as the number grows, the problems of space, manpower and construction resources become increasingly prohibitive.<\/p>\n

The use of wind lenses, however, could blow this out of the water. Wind lens construction and installation, compared to constructing additional pylons windmills, is trivial, and while the extra toll on turbines could require more maintenance, it is again trivial compared to building more windmills. In short, wind lenses could make wind energy a possible alternative to traditional power sources instead of just a supplement like it is today.<\/p>\n

\n

new design for wind turbines <\/h3>\n

1 February 2008
\n
\nFloDesign’s unique mixer\/ejector technology and fluid machinery expertise was used to develop and patent a novel machine concept for more effectively converting wind energy into usable power. The new concept is called a Mixer\/Ejector Wind Turbine (MEWT).<\/p>\n

For a given wind velocity, a MEWT having a maximum diameter 50% smaller than an existing 3-Bladed Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) can potentially generate over 50% more power, and can potentially cost 25-35% less than the same HAWT. The FloDesign Wind Turbine Corporation was initiated to develop such wind turbines in Western Massachusetts. It has an exclusive license from FloDesign to fabricate and market the MEWT concept.<\/p>\n

The MEWT system uses cambered ringed airfoils (shrouds) and an efficient mixer\/ejector pump to draw in more wind flow through the machine. A stator-rotor turbine cascade design is used to more effectively extract energy from the flow. This new cascade concept allows smaller, more durable rotor blades that can withstand high wind gusts and turbulence.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the low inertia, smaller rotor blades spin faster and provide more energy extraction at both lower and higher wind speeds. The shrouded blades and higher rotor speeds also reduce gear box complexity and result in quieter, safer wind turbines.<\/p>\n

A stator-rotor turbine cascade design is used to more effectively extract energy from the flow. For a given wind velocity, a MEWT having a maximum diameter 50% smaller than an existing 3-Bladed HAWT can potentially generate over 50% more power, and can potentially cost 25-35% less than the same HAWT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 31st, 2011 After the damage caused by the Fukushima disaster, it only makes sense that Japan turn its resources to trying to find another efficient form of clean energy besides nuclear. Research into wind turbine development may have lead to a solution with stunning potential. Wind lenses, rings that go around the outside of a turbine’s blades, can double or even triple the turbine’s power output, bringing wind farms. . . CONTINUE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}