This episode is brought to you by Brilliant
... click the link in the description below. Wind power is one of the fastest-growing renewable
sources that works well at scale, but it isn't perfect. A wind turbine's massive size and
moving parts make them challenging to roll out because of the space they take up, as
well as maintenance. But what if we could scale down that power to something that could
fit on your roof? And be self-contained with smaller moving parts ... or maybe no blades
or moving parts at all? Let's look at some future alternatives for harnessing wind power. I'm Matt Ferrell ... welcome to Undecided. It's not hard to see that, along with solar,
wind power has been a major player all over the world in lowering our carbon emissions
from fossil fuels. According to the latest Global Wind Report, 93 GW of new global wind
power capacity was installed in 2020, with the U.S. and China leading the way. Currently,
743 GW of wind power capacity is installed worldwide, making it the green power source
with the most decarbonization potential per MW. It's helping to avoid over 1.1 billion
tons of CO2 globally. But, wind turbines aren't all good. As I mentioned in a previous video, wind turbines
have several downsides. Harnessing wind requires high upfront costs, and the energy generation
isn't as effective for individual homes, or small scale installations, as they are at
large scale. The construction of wind farms has also had an impact on wildlife. While
they do kill a good number of birds and bats every year, when you look at those numbers
in context it's blown a little out of proportion. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates
that between 140,000-500,000 birds die at wind farms each year. Compared to the 2.4
billion birds that are killed in the U.S. each year by domesticated cats, or the 1 billion
birds that die from flying into windows. There are simple solutions that are proving to be
effective for that, like just painting one of the blades black. But there's also the fact that turbines have
a lot of moving parts, like the gearbox, which require a decent amount of maintenance. They
need to be checked two to three times a year. And this is where solid-state wind power arrives
on the scene. [^maintenance_checkup] In 2013, researchers at Delft University of
Technology in the Netherlands removed the need for moving mechanical components and
created EWICON, which stands for Electrostatic Wind Energy Convertor, kicking off the development
of the ion wind generator concept. While it's still very much in development, it provides
significantly lower maintenance costs, less wear and tear, and no noise issues. And how it works is kind of fascinating. EWICON
utilizes wind to create a flow of charged particles through the air that can be tapped
into to produce electricity. In this case, water droplets are used to hold a positive
charge and, when the wind blows them, this movement of the droplets produces electricity
that can be transferred to the grid. A prototype of the EWICON is installed at
the Delft University of Technology. An obvious downside of this idea is the reliance
on water to carry the charge. You'd need a water line run to installations and it wouldn't
work at freezing temperatures. But there's another idea called the Solid-State Wind-Energy
Transformer (with the unfortunate acronym ... SWET) developed by Richard Epstein. His
approach is very similar to what the Dutch developed, but instead of using water his
concept uses ionic currents to produce electricity. This process is called "electrohydrodynamics". Richard Epstein described the prototype as
a series of 55 parallel aluminum wires strung between two 8.5-meter tall wooden masts, separated
by about 8 meters on a flat roof, and all the wires were electrically isolated from
the masts. In the prototype there were two kinds of wires: attractor wires, which were
plain wires, and emitter wires that contained small tufts of 7-micrometer diameter carbon
fibers attached about every 15 cm. When small negative currents flow through the emitter
wires, the tufts create a coronal discharge, releasing negative ions into the air. It's
not that different from ionic air purifiers that were all the rage in the early 2000's
... if you remember the ionic breeze ... I'm still trying to forget those commercials.
So just like the EWICON concept, the wind blowing past the wires carries the negative
ions with it, and the array gets a slight positive charge. This causes electrons to
flow from the ground, which can be collected as electricity. The prototype developed by Epstein has just
1/20 of a watt of power, but it's just a prototype to prove the concept and it's still at the
first steps of its development. Utilizing the same principles of EWICON, the
Dutch Windwheel Corporation is developing a 160-180 meter high future landmark in Rotterdam.
It looks kind of like a gigantic donut. The hole in the center will be putting this solid
state energy generation to work. The structure's also intended to pull together multiple eco-friendly
technologies, including rainwater capture, wetland water filtration, and solar energy.
Not to mention apartments, a hotel, and a sky bar. Who doesn't love a good sky bar?
It's expected to be built sometime between 2022 and 2025. Now, as cool as that tech is, it's all still
very much in the early phases of development, but there are some other technologies that
could be hitting the residential and city market sooner. Another type of wind generator
without moving parts has been developed by Vortex Bladeless. But warning ... it looks
a little weird. This Spanish company has developed a vortex induced vibration resonant wind generator,
which is based on the principle of Vortex Shedding. The generator is built with the
shape of a cylinder, producing electricity through an alternator system when the mast
oscillates. The bottom of the rod is firmly attached to the ground, but the upper portion
is unconstrained and able to vibrate. The structure is built with materials used
in traditional wind turbine blades, using resins reinforced with carbon and/or glass
fiber. Bladeless wind turbines get rid of the mechanical elements that can suffer wear
by friction. But how does this wiggling, vibrating column
produce energy? Well, to understand this we'll need to jump a little bit into the world of
fluid mechanics. As wind passes by a blunt body, the flow is
changed, producing a cyclical vortices pattern known as vortex shedding. Imagine placing
a cylinder partially submerged into running water. If the water is moving too fast or
too slow, the vortices that form around the cylinder are chaotic. But if the speed of
the water and frequency of the object are matched, the vortices form more consistently
and will exert force on the cylinder causing it to move. Every body or structure has a natural frequency.
If the frequency of these vortices is close enough to a body’s structural frequency,
it starts to oscillate, resonating with the wind. This is also known as Vortex Induced
Vibration (VIV). You've probably seen or heard of the ramifications of this effect on bridges
that weren't designed properly, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Engineers and architects design
bridges and skyscrapers to avoid this effect. They design structures to have different resonant
frequencies from the wind's resonant frequency. But Vortex Bladless is doing the exact opposite
in order to put vortex induced vibration to work. Vortex’s mast geometry is specifically
designed to achieve maximum performance with typical wind speeds. To convert these vibrations
into electricity, Vortex Bladeless turbines utilize an alternator system made by coils
and magnets, that can adapt to the vortex dynamics with no gears, shafts or rotating
parts. This design provides reduced maintenance and rules out the need for greasing. This magnetic confinement design acts as a
"tunning system," so it can increase the stiffness of the system according to the deformation
that the wind causes. It's basically adjusting and synchronizing its natural frequency to
match the wind's frequency. Today Vortex Bladeless turbines harvest about
30% of the area covered by the blades of a traditional 3-bladed wind turbine of identical
height; this is called swept area. The bottom line: vortex technology is less power efficient
than the traditional 3-blade turbines since the power production is proportional to the
swept area of a wind turbine. On the flip side, a smaller swept area allows for more
bladeless turbines to be placed in the same area, making up for that power efficiency
gap. Running at low to medium wind speeds, it's able to generate the same power for less
cost. It's about 45% cheaper than a traditional 3-blade wind turbine. The Vortex Tacoma, which is 2.75 meters high,
has an estimated rated power output of 100 watts, and the company expect Vortex Tacoma
models to have a similar price to medium-high production solar panels. Now, getting closer to the residential market
for wind turbines, Savonius turbines have been gaining popularity. These wind turbines
are simple drag-type devices that consist of two or three scoops. Due to their curvature,
the scoops experience less drag when moving against the wind than moving with the wind,
which makes it extract less wind power than other lift-type turbines of a similar size.
However, they are cost-effective, can operate regardless of the wind direction, the blades
in the turbine need no mechanism to alter the angles, and they're more bird and bat
friendly than conventional 3-bladed turbines. With this idea in mind, the Iceland-based
company Icewind has been manufacturing Savoniuos turbines for residential and commercial applications.
Their CW100 model, sold as THE FREYA in the U.S., is designed to deliver long-lasting
performance, with little or no maintenance for over 25 years. This 1.5-meters high turbine
is able to withstand wind speeds up to 130 mph (60 m/s) and generate up to 600 watts. The company sells each turbine for $3,200
and a complete on-grid system with a 1.5 kilowatt inverter for $4,180. In the U.S. the cost
of a set of solar panels to produce the same 600 watts would be around $1,932. The turbine
is a bit more expensive, but you also get the potential for producing power during the
night. But the innovations on wind power don't stop
here. Halcium, a startup based in Salt Lake City, Utah is hoping it's portable wind turbine
will be the next big innovation in green energy. The company's been developing what they call
a PowerPod, which is a small-scale wind turbine designed specifically to work in towns and
cities. The PowerPod does have a blade system, but
it's completely contained entirely within the stationary shell, making it safe for kids,
pets, and wildlife since it has no external moving parts. The wind generator's shape can
collect wind from any direction, changing directions, or even multiple directions at
once. A 1kW wind turbine would produce up to three times more power than a normally
mounted turbine of similar size and swept area. This extra power comes from the advanced
blade system of the pod that boosts up wind speed by 40%. To make this happen, the PowerPod
takes air and funnels it into a smaller exit, which speeds it up before hitting the internal
blade. It reminds me a little bit of a Dyson vacuum cleaner's vortex cyclone. Much like some of the other turbines I've
talked about, the interesting angle with the PowerPod is its capability of being either
connected to a building on its own, or paired with solar to diversify your power sources.
And the PowerPod's design means it can be installed anywhere: house rooftops, public
buildings, fences, etc. Nick Hodges, the founder of Halcium, created
a map showing the average daily power generated from a 1kW PowerPod compared to a 1kW solar
panel system in different parts of the world. In most cities, the PowerPod could perform
equal or greater than a conventional 1kW solar panel system. A big reason for this is due
to its 24/7 operation, while solar is limited to daylight hours, and has lower production
on cloudy or rainy days. Although the PowerPod isn't for sale quite
yet, and the specifications aren't well-known, it's an interesting idea to bring wind generation
in a more flexible package closer to our homes. The PowerPod will most likely be available
towards the end of 2021. As we can see, wind power generation isn't
limited to traditional 3-bladed turbines we're used to seeing everywhere. These innovative,
small-scale, lower-maintenance wind generators with no or hidden moving parts hold a lot
of promise. In the coming years we'll probably be seeing more of these alternatives on tops
of office buildings and even homes. I think I'd opt for the PowerPod over the wiggling
column, but I won't be too picky. But if you'd like to understand more about
how the Vortex Bladless design even works, or how the ions flow in the solid state designs
I talked about, you can learn a lot from the Electricity and Magnetism course and Brilliant.
It helped me get a better sense for how everything related to electricity or magnetism starts
with a charge. And how ions can flow across different elements like saltwater. But even if you don't get charged up learning
about electricity (I love a good dad joke), they have over 60 courses including topics
in computer science, physics, and mathematics. They've got something for everybody. All of the concepts are taught through fun
and interactive challenges to help you understand the "why" of something ... not just the "how."
It helps to develop your intuition, which is my favorite part about Brilliant and taps
into the way I learn. Go to www.brilliant.org/Undecided to sign
up for free. The first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership. Thanks
to Brilliant and to all of you for supporting the channel. So would you want something like a PowerPod
for your home? Jump into the comments and let me know. If you liked this video be sure
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in the next one.
Brought to you by Dyson.
If we get rid of the Blades how will we keep the vampire problem in check?
A small version of one of these is at the Delft University of Technology but he couldn't "find any information about" if it still works. Surely someone can just email or call the university to ask? Sounds like he just googled it.
All of these small turbines are essentially consumer products made for a capitalist market. If at all they are only useful for off-grid applications.
Any large scale effort in electricity generation would be better off using regular 5MW turbines instead of 50.000 100W windboxes for the same output.
Not sure this would be better for birds.