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Yet another alternative design for wind farms
The neat inflatable wind turbine we looked at earlier this week solves a materials/cost problem, but it doesn't solve the eyesore problem that keeps some communities opposed to wind farms. So here comes yet another wind-harnessing solution, this time from a Japanese company called Zena: The Wind Tower.
It's a design for a 50-meter tall structure that collects wind from every which direction, compressing it within its structure and channeling it into a wind tunnel that runs down the core. It is supposedly more cost-efficient than putting up a wind farm and it's arguably more sightly, as it just looks like another building, albeit a tall one.
It'd be cool if the building was managed by a lone guy with an office inside the structure, but I'm guessing he'd need a manageable hairstyle and rather a lot of paperweights.
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As an Industrial Designer, I can respect the fact that people tend to have a certain bias to what should and should not be accepted into their environment.
However, I still fail to see the logic in power lines, skyscrapers, and coal-powered electricity generating plants as being more acceptable than wind turbines.
Case in point, the infamous Cape Wind project received opposition because people were led to believe that wind turbines on the horizon would disrupt their view. Seriously? That same view can be *equally* disrupted by a ship carrying coal sailing off into the sunset. An offshore wind generator modeled after a sailboat would seemingly be a more readily accepted. The concept is enough to make my soul cry ducks and decorated sheds.
Then there's the whole argument of wind turbines killing off birds and bats. Valid yes. BUT, I would argue that the millions of vehicles on the millions of miles of paved roads kill exponentially more animals AND bugs (that we need to pollinate flowers for fruits and vegetables we humans need to eat) than the paltry amount of wind generators we have in operation.
Yes, you can probably surmise I have an issue with the "eyesore" issue and believe me when I write that I'm doing my best to maintain some brevity to this post for the sake of my own sanity.