Doesn’t green energy just make you smile from time to time? The innovative projects and ideas that come about by harnessing the free, plentiful resources around us is incredible. Take for instance, the Wind Dam; a massive 75 meter sail that captures the wind and funnels it down to a turbine. Not only does it look like it was made by Shelob herself, but the architectural firm behind the idea is actually applying for a grant to build it in Russia.
According to reports, the £2.5 million project will be located on Lake Lagoda and includes a cup-shaped spinnaker sail, believed to be the first of its kind, which is apparently very effective at capturing high winds. From the article,
“Project architect Laurie Chetwood, said that the shape of the sail was influenced by functionality and a desire to produce something “sculptural”. He added: ‘The sail looks like a bird dipping its beak into the water, which will be much less of a blot on this beautiful and unblemished landscape. But it is also highly effective at capturing the wind because it replicates the work of a dam and doesn’t let the wind escape in the way it does using traditional propellers.’”
If successful with the first application, the firm will then also apply for a similar setup at another “windy” gorge further up from this one. Obviously, there are limits with regards to geography as to where such a setup could function efficiently — but, it’s still impressive. No word yet on how much energy such a setup could produce.
via core.form-ula via ecofriend
2 Comments
Is this smart? It’s an engineer solution. Unbelievable shortsighted! What will happen to the natural formed(million years!)surroundings. Do they really care?
This is awesome. Now if they could figure out a “way” to suck all the SECOND HAND SMOKE out of bars, we would have “something!!!”
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