One might/should say that we don't generate power, but that we actually generate electrical power by converting another form of power to electrical power. We have only learned how to convert light, chemical, and moving mass into substantial "quantities" of electrical power, and those are solar power by photocells, battery power by chemical cells, and various electromagnetic generators or alternators which usually use moving magnets and their magnetic fields.

Am I correct so far? Perhaps I'm missing other means?

In any case, I just watched a short presentation at the following URL which I have difficulty believing can generate useful amounts of electrical power. Do you see something or understand something about this technology which leads you to believe it viable for ordinary production of electrical power?

http://www.upworthy.com/try-not-to-...-these-amazing-bladeless-wind-turbines?c=ufb4

 

I worked with a fellow named Tim Chen who invented and obtained a U.S. patent for a similar turbine sometime around 2010. He ended up licensing it for harvesting energy from the air pressure caused cars driving on freeways. His was cylindrical, while the one in the photographs appears to be conical for some reason.

 

Do you see something or understand something about this technology which leads you to believe it viable for ordinary production of electrical power?

looks to rely on resonance caused by wind.

turbines and fans are essentially the same thing, working in reverse. blade-less fans are quite common so blade-less turbines, not the kind you linked above, should be possible.

 

turbines and fans are essentially the same thing, working in reverse. blade-less fans are quite common so blade-less turbines, not the kind you linked above, should be possible.

You do know that a "blade-less fan" has a fan in it's base don't you?

 

It's a great way to go.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...1/can-bladeless-wind-turbines-mute-opposition

 

You do know that a "blade-less fan" has a fan in it's base don't you?

Obviously not.

I still say he's a chat bot and if so it's failing the Turing test!

I can't see how any real human being can be so consistent on taking opposing views of things yet still be so constantly wrong about both sides while doing it.

A real human can break the ignorance barrier just by using a search engine and some sense to find out more about what it is they want to talk about and easily integrate it into their working common knowledge base so they have some idea of how something is or works before saying something stupid.

He seems to be clearly incapable of working with that basic level of information searching and reasoning as to why he needs to do it or how to integrate it into his common knowledge base conversational structure.

That's my guess.

 

It's a great way to go.

not really sure. the article seems to be full of numbers / claimed pulled out of thin air.

i would think for this thing to work, you will need an array of them to form sufficient "cross section"; and will also need to solve for structural fatigue. and noise is likely an issue too, probably a bigger issue here than it is with a conventional turbine.

The ideal does seem appealing but I think a traditional bladeless fan design would have been more interesting to explore.

 

I agree. Can you harvest some wind energy? Sure. Can you get more power per acre (or dollar) than traditional designs? I doubt it. They'd be leading with the numbers if they had them on their side.

 

What is the traditional bladeless fan design?

 

I'll bet you can get more energy per area with this.

 

I still say he's a chat bot and if so it's failing the Turing test!

I suspect you are correct.

noise is likely an issue too, probably a bigger issue here than it is with a conventional turbine.

That was a statement in direct opposition to one of the primary advantages of the "bladeless turbine", showing a lack of ability to search and understand.

In the last two days, I have called him out for saying massive ignorance doesn't cause poor decisions, and that somebody in Cuba is complaining about U.S. elections. There has been no response to either.

Troll? Chatbot? I would hope it doesn't matter to me if the Ignore function works, but conversations get hijacked and littered with responses to his non-sequiturs. Then I have to turn off the Ignore on the Thread to see who caused the confusion. This is beginning to be an obstruction to orderly conversations.

 

What is the traditional bladeless fan design?

look into your hvac air blower - a rat cage design.

I'll bet you can get more energy per area with this.

if so, it is not clear. the figures they quoted in the article is fairly low, like kw range per installation. a traditional turbine far exceeds that.

Again, it doesn't have enough cross section on a per installation basis.

 

I suspect you are correct.

That was a statement in direct opposition to one of the primary advantages of the "bladeless turbine", showing a lack of ability to search and understand.

In the last two days, I have called him out for saying massive ignorance doesn't cause poor decisions, and that somebody in Cuba is complaining about U.S. elections. There has been no response to either.

Troll? Chatbot? I would hope it doesn't matter to me if the Ignore function works, but conversations get hijacked and littered with responses to his non-sequiturs. Then I have to turn off the Ignore on the Thread to see who caused the confusion. This is beginning to be an obstruction to orderly conversations.

Yep. I have yet to ever see anyone get called out so many times for so many inconsistencies by so many people and never once reply or even post any links to anything that backs up their claim once.

It's too suspicious to pass without my questioning it. Trolls can't help but argue a nonsensical stance if for no other reason than to bait a person into interacting with them at their level of idiocy.

'danny bot' here clearly is unable to do that or take a call out lead from such posts as this even.

 

It's not a hoax.
I hate to be a downer about this but the engineering to make a durable low cost product is daunting. I hope they are successful but there are good reasons why blades are used in wind turbines today.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/1911.pdf

"oscillating vane" designs

 

look into your hvac air blower - a rat cage design.

Then what are those things called in the squirrel cage (not 'rat') called if not blades, smart guy?

 

Then what are those things called in the squirrel cage (not 'rat') called if not blades, smart guy?

I'll venture a guess and call them vanes... I don't know squat about turbines ...

 

I think they're all blades. The distinction is whether they rotate in a plane perpendicular to the main axis, or in a cylinder parallel to and around the main axis.

As for the oscillating vanes, as @nsaspook has dubbed them, I'm reiterating my skepticism that you can get the same productivity per acre or per dollar from such a device. They may not scale well, for one thing.

That said, there may be great niche applications where a giant rotating blade is impractical. I'd like to see how they work underwater, with tidal flow. They may be far less prone to fouling than a rotating blade.

 

Would be interesting to see the environmental impact on birds from such a thing. Wind turbines kill a lot of birds, at a much slower speed. Those vibrating sticks would do more damage I assume

 

Wind turbines kill a lot of birds, at a much slower speed. Those vibrating sticks would do more damage I assume

ass u

Not even close to correct. A better comparison would be the number of birds killed by flying into a phone pole.

ak

 

not really sure. the article seems to be full of numbers / claimed pulled out of thin air.

Using my secret powers, I *read* all of the words in both articles. Clue: the words are in English.

The numbers came out of a wind tunnel. This is a device for scientific testing that dates back over 100 years. The Wright brothers' mahogany and walnut tunnel (also used for scale model testing) is in the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Note: The Wright brothers are not an urban legend.

This product still is in the very early stages of development. They have verified the operating principles and tweaked the design using scaled-down models in an indoor wind tunnel. Small-scale outdoor work has just begun, and anything remotely useful is at least one year away. Comparing this to a 50-year old globe-spanning industry with billion-dollar development budgets is beyond juvenile.

ak