Jimmy Higgins
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- Jan 31, 2001
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Ingenuity continues to expand the possibilities of using wind power to help power homes along coasts across the world. Here are the latest updates on studies involving new designs that aim at bridging the gap of fiction to feasibility.
Wet Monroe - This design was originally seen as a breakthrough in potential design of wind powered mills. This would provide power without the eye sore of mills above the water level by putting the mills under the water to generate wind power. Unfortunately, the prototypes were a complete failure as the wind is only located above the water surface.
Seaguller - This lower efficiency model was designed to generate energy closer to the shore by limiting its profile so as not to be noticed. The result was a mill that generated fewer watts, but also fewer complaints. The main benefit was how efficient it killed seabirds. Despite the smaller profile, the Seaguller impressively killed 120 times the number of seabirds per kilowatt generated than any other model. This excited people that hate seagulls a lot. However, beach goers were dismayed by the number of dead birds washing up on the beach.
Free Float - The free float windmill reduced the infrastructure required to have windmills further out to sea where wind velocities are greatest and more consistent. This design eliminated the need for a foundation or even an anchor. The free float design would allow the windmills to move about with the sea. The problem with the prototypes was the windmills usually just floated away and were never seen again.
Drinking Bird - This ingenuous design uses a much smaller mill span to generate just enough energy to reactivate a 100 ft tall drinking bird, which slowly bent down into a massive cannister of water which would make the bird drive back up and slowly fall back down, until it ran out of energy, of which the small turbine would reactivate the cycle. The system was energy positive, but the large water cannister would continually fall over in large swells.
Wet Monroe - This design was originally seen as a breakthrough in potential design of wind powered mills. This would provide power without the eye sore of mills above the water level by putting the mills under the water to generate wind power. Unfortunately, the prototypes were a complete failure as the wind is only located above the water surface.
Seaguller - This lower efficiency model was designed to generate energy closer to the shore by limiting its profile so as not to be noticed. The result was a mill that generated fewer watts, but also fewer complaints. The main benefit was how efficient it killed seabirds. Despite the smaller profile, the Seaguller impressively killed 120 times the number of seabirds per kilowatt generated than any other model. This excited people that hate seagulls a lot. However, beach goers were dismayed by the number of dead birds washing up on the beach.
Free Float - The free float windmill reduced the infrastructure required to have windmills further out to sea where wind velocities are greatest and more consistent. This design eliminated the need for a foundation or even an anchor. The free float design would allow the windmills to move about with the sea. The problem with the prototypes was the windmills usually just floated away and were never seen again.
Drinking Bird - This ingenuous design uses a much smaller mill span to generate just enough energy to reactivate a 100 ft tall drinking bird, which slowly bent down into a massive cannister of water which would make the bird drive back up and slowly fall back down, until it ran out of energy, of which the small turbine would reactivate the cycle. The system was energy positive, but the large water cannister would continually fall over in large swells.