Turby — A Wind Turbine that Loves City Turbulence
by Warren McLaren, Sydney 
on 04.19.06
How many products do you know that proclaim, “Hey, we’re 18 times more expensive to operate than the competition”? Well, Turby does, and it’s darn fine see some product honesty once in a while. Of course, they do go on to explain that if one factors in environmental and economic constraints not covered by their opposition, then the difference drops to just 1.8 times higher. Then they ask if your children’s future will be a livable one, if we stick with finite fossil fuels? That’s an easy question to answer. The harder one is, what makes the Turby 40% more efficient than many other wind turbines? Seems it has hit on an optimum design compromise between vertical and horizontal bladed turbines. And this makes them ideal for city use, which is notoriously bad for windpower generation, because the wind comes from all directions. In fact, The Turby works best when some updraft is funneled up a minimum of six storeys. On this point, they don’t recommend them for houses, though tall apartments work just dandy. We are further informed that none less than William McDonough himself has declared that the Turby should be the “worldwide symbol for renewable energy.” But we ramble. Download their 16 page PDF for all the nitty gritty. Thanks for tipster Vjekoslav R. ::Turby
Apparently 800 Turbys have been suggested for the top of the new Freedom Tower and 102 for the new JET stadium, both in New York.
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Check this german Wind Converter for urban use too: http://www.windwandler.de/eng/index.html
so what do they Tell the bird-philes?
How about one or two of these on top of cell phone towers? power not only communication but extra energy flows onto the grid. Get more use out of those ugly things.
That's actually a very good idea, IMHO.
I've heard this design of windmill is supposed to be substantially less harmful to birds, assuming there is actually any harm posed to birds by windmills in the first place...
At a total cost of well over 12,000 euros?! I would NEVER consider buying this thing knowing that there are wind turbines on the market for incredibly less. The cost of this is utterly ridiculous. I bought a 1kW Bergey XL for less than 2,000 dollars. The idea and design are appealing but those in no way justify that price.
I have a chinese inventor that we work with who has patents on VAWT (vertical) turbines. They have designed systems that mount atop every electrical pole and tie directly in. It's a pretty neat idea. But I am just not sure the facts bear out that vertical turbines are better. Regular horizontal axis turbines can get so much leverage from the long blades and they are very well proven as successful. I have yet to see a vertical turbine that I would prefer over my horizontal style turbines. Maybe they will get better, but many take more wind to spin up, why, because they cannot get that leverage of the long blade.
Reconditioned Turbines for School Wind Projects