Third-World Wind Power

This is an amazing approach to a difficult problem: how do you enable developing countries to afford wind-powered generators? Simply shrinking a turbine can make it more expensive, and involves many components which can break.

This guy has come up with a novel solution, using a strip of flexible material, a button magnet, and two coils. When wind blows over the strip, it vibrates due to “aero-elastic flutter”. A magnet attached near one end of the strip then vibrates between two coils, generating enough power to run a few LEDs, a clock, or apparently from the video, a radio!

The best bit is that this generator apparently only costs about $5 to make. Imagine, a field of these generating power for a small village. Or the example he gives is to have a strip suspended across a valley which (I’m guessing) must give more power output (longer strips would vibrate more… I think).

I’m constantly amazed at the ingenuity of people when faced with a difficult problem. I can’t wait to see if these things do get put to good use.

There’s another application I can think of; my local church really should be doing more to be environmentally friendly. We recycle and all that, but generating some of our own power would be fantastic too (and it would cut down on bills). Current wind turbines cost thousands of pounds, and are often refused planning permission because they are a bit noisy. This new generator could provide a cheaper and, potentially quieter, option.

~ by geekspeek on October 13, 2007.