Windmills are catching on. However, the rotary propeller occurs only once in nature (in spermatozoa.) We need to explore the extraction of power from a moving fluid from with a non-rotary system. For example, we have all seen flags and pennants furling in the wind. Can we construct a furling device that extracts power from moving water or air? Similarly, a tree bends, if only slightly, in a wind, and oscillates to and fro. It is possible to build a tree-like structure which extracts power from a moving fluid? If so, how efficient can it be? Would it be safer than a windmill? Could it be packed more densely into a given area? Would it be kinder to wildlife?
Success criterion is to build a machine that extracts 1/10th of the power from wind that windmill of similar size would extract.
This sounds very promising. Is this in any way related to the experiments in wave power that I've heard about? I know Ireland and a couple other European countries have prototypes on their coastlines, but not sure if oscillating is part of their structure...
ReplyDeleteIt is related, but not quite the same idea. Extracting wave power is starting with a circular motion. What I'm talking about is a non-rotary approach in linear flow---a distinction that only geeky wonks like me would make.
DeleteThis idea is to make something that in a simple linear flow, either a current of water or a current of air, would wave back and forth. I was actually inspired by something we have out in West Texas---cigarette signs that consists of a flat plate of metal on springs bolted to the ground. A simple flat piece of metal would be torn apart by the winds on the High Plains, but these things bob and bend and then pop back up (to remain visible). I'll claim they are "simpler" than a windmill---though getting power out of one might not be. But you can put one of these in a gas station parking lot where toddlers and dogs walk around, and you couldn't to that with a windmill.
However, extracting power from waves may be a more important idea---but it's been done. I'm not here to compete with others, but to eschew competition by developing ideas that nobody else is working on.
Thanks for your comments!