Posted by Robert MacReady On October - 20 - 2010
What if you could have wind power without the need for dozens of pesky four hundred foot turbines and all the noise, low-frequency vibrations and strobing light associated with them? Instead, imagine something like a field of very tall reeds blowing in the wind, a forest of windstalks quietly generating power with kinetic energy.
Windstalks are a new concept from the green design firm Atelier DNA, for use in Masdar City, a new sustainable community being built just outside Abu Dhabi in Dubai.
“The idea came from trying to find kinetic models in nature that could be tapped to produce energy,” said Darío Núñez-Ameni of Atelier DNA.
The design calls for 1203 carbon fiber windstalks attached to torque generators at their base, which would generate kinetic energy as they move in the wind. Each windstalk would be approximately 55 metres high and 30 centimetres wide at the base and only 5 centimetres wide at the top. The windstalks would be tipped with LED lights that would brighten and dim depending on the wind speed, creating an ethereal glowing forest that would be spectacular to behold. Instead of being an eyesore on the horizon and a blight on a community, the designers hope that people will enjoy living in proximity to a windstalk farm for its aesthetic beauty.
The windstalks are a very simple construction, with fewer moving parts than conventional wind turbines. In desert climates like Dubai there is no shortage of strong winds, but traditional wind turbines are rendered nearly useless by frequent sandstorms. If the technology proves viable, windstalks could easily become a viable renewable alternative for areas prone to sandstorms.
Atelier DNA are confident that a windstalk farm of a given size would be able to produce as much electricity as a wind turbine farm of the same size. They have even taken into account the fact that the wind won’t always be blowing, engineering a backup hydroelectric pump system that would store power and release it.
The designers believe that the windstalk design could even be applied to underwater environments. For now the technology remains just a concept. More research and development must be done before working models can be constructed, but the technology is an exciting new prospect in the field of renewable energy.
Source: Discovery Channel, Reuters, Atelier DNA
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