Very nice!

Big turbines are going to stay more cost effective for a while, but I'm sure that these and others similar will become popular in the next few years. I know some places in the city where it's always windy, and it's probably even more so near the roof.

One of the biggest set up expenses in wind energy is the tower, and another is the access to a power line.

These small turbines could be placed atop almost each and every telephone / power line pole except those few near trees, to make a substantial part or the energy needs.

I love it. American innovation, coming to the rescue. In just the last year we have seen so many great new ideas. A little patience and we will get the best of foreign oil by doing what we do best, working, inventing, building, marketing.

The energy crisis is not the demise of the US, this is the dawn of a new era of prosperity, you'll see.

4 feet (1.25 m diameter), gives a swiped area of about 1.22 square meter. A modern wind turbine can have a diameter of 80m , giving a swiped area of more than 5000 square meter, which means that you need at least 4000 of the microturbines to produce as much power. Then a city is probably not the most ideal location for wind either, so you probably need even more of them. A neat idea, but it does not scale. This is microturbines also in terms of power production.

where do i purchase one? -link please

where do i purchase one? -link please

I know we are supposed gush at anything "eco-y" but come on. This is ridiculous, it is a bunch of Southwest Windpower low power turbines with an asinine "bird screen" in front. Argh! I swear I am going to create a web page: small wind turbines don't kill birds, giant wind turbines kill a few soaring birds. If small wind turbines killed birds, farmers during the depression would have stood beneath their wind mills (that every farm had) and free, delicious, dead birds would have rained down on them and their hungry family.

Buildings kill lots more birds than wind turbines and domestic cats are decimating the song bird population in the US, it is a crisis - no one gives a damn because cat people are hypocrites. Who benefits from the myth that wind turbines kill birds?

For some actually innovative urban wind turbine design, check out these horizontal vertical axis designs: http://www.aerotecture.com/ourvision.html

But if you want the stuff in this article, just buy the SouthWest windpower turbines and stuck them into some concrete umbrella stands - reduce! reuse!

Nice idea to use the building as a wind deflector, but this is another paper-design venture capital sales pitch I'm afraid.

Back of the envelope calculation give the maximum theoretical power obtained from this device (± 0.6m radius) at a paltry 200 Watts in a 16 mph wind (but a more respectable 1700 W in a 32 mph wind). A 16 MPH wind is considered a good wind energy source, as found around the great lakes.

At 8 MPH, these puppies would only generate a theoretical 27 Watts. Real world values would be lower.

We'll never see them here in the UK unfortunately! Too much red tape & beuracacy - anyone who wants to install solar panels on their roof has to acquire planning permission! How backwards can you get?

Don't forget that these small turbines (they look like southwest wind power Air-X turbines - 400w) make a freaking racket.

There is an installation at the borax mine in Boron, CA that looks like it may have been done by this outfit.

"Building effect" is unpredictable and changes greatly based on the wind speed. Most of the time the building acts as a trip (produces dirty, turbulent flow) rather than serving to amplify existing wind.

Looks familiar... http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/miniwind_turbin.php

or maybe was it... http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/wind_turbines_on_the_edge.php

Seems like a blast from the past, or maybe a product promotion, guys and gals.

--
ed: With over 20,000 articles in the archives, sometimes this happens. Sorry.

This is a great idea, while they may not generate a lot of energy, its better than leaving a crapload of useless roof space, look at every Home Depot and Walmart around, tons of roof space, doing nothing, ditto for apartment building everywhere. Could be particularly productive in industrial warehouse areas located close to rivers where winds tend to be particularly strong. Might take 4000-5000 units to equal a regular turbine, but I can gaurantee you could mount and install them far mroe quickly, and most likely at far lower cost.

Not to mention, this is something that a lot of companies could use to visibly display their 'green' behaviour, rather than talking about buying renewable energy, they could start producing some!

Love how compact they are!

Brett is absoluetly correct....

Why not use these empty spaces and fill them with small turbines to generate electricity. These turbines can be designed to asthetically compliment the buildings to which they are attached.

J. Bit, your comment is weak and somewhat negative.

You need to think on a global level in which ALL of these small turbines and the amount of energy they will create.

The other issue is average wind speed. Of course the location needs to be reasonably planned out, there is not doubt about that. But you can't just use a blanket statement about an area, within each area that has a windspeed average, there are areas within that area that have higher speeds.

Just like solar can only collect energy during the day, wind can only collect energy during a good breeze....there are also differnt times of the year which productivity will be stronger than others, solar is stronger in the summer as opposed to winter and wind can be extremely varied during all seasons.

So even if one turbine generates your theoretical 27 watts, can you expand your mind and multiply that number on a global scale and remember there are many other places around the country/world that will generate even greater numbers.

With that said, we need to be vigilant and smart about being green and install the appropriate device in the apporpriate location. Not every device will work in all locations. But blanket statements don't work either.

Might take 4000-5000 units to equal a regular turbine, but I can gaurantee you could mount and install them far mroe quickly, and most likely at far lower cost....

Mounting a 1+ MW unit takes one concrete footing, one crane, and one run of (very thick) copper to the utility transformer. (Offshore is a different animal.)

Given that the energy available goes up with height above ground, and with the square of the rotor diameter, I believe you are practising physics without a license. :)