A vertical axis wind turbine that doesn't need the prevailing wind! How do they do that? 

****************** INFORMATION CORRECTION FROM THE VIDEO CREATOR******************** Some of you eagled-eyed viewers have pointed out a discrepancy in the arithmetic in a cost comparison between a solar farm and an installation of turbines, which was originally featured at the halfway point in this video. Having spoken directly with the folks at Alpha 311 we have established that, while the bottom-line cost comparisons were correct, there was a syntax error in the original presentation document from which the comparison was taken, and there was some key data that I had not included in my commentary which would have clarified how the calculations had been made. It’s not possible to add a new section to a video once it has been posted on RU-vid, but it is possible to delete certain sections, so I have now removed the comparison slide, and it no longer features in the video. I am however conscious that some of you would like to understand what the accurate numbers really are. So here they are : Cost comparison : A 3MW solar farm on 15 acres of land, consisting of 12,000 panels at 250W per panel, with a 25 year ‘Power Purchase Agreement’ at an agreed cost of between 4.7pence and 6.3pence per kWh, giving an overall 25 year cost range of between £38.2m and £51.3m Versus An installation of 125 turbines along an existing 4.5km stretch of motorway with a monthly lease cost (including installation and lifetime maintenance) of £29,000, giving a full 25-year cost of £8.7m. Calculations: A 3MW Solar installation receiving 6 hours of useable sunlight each day (averaged across a year) works out like this: 3000kW x 6hrs = 18,000kWh per day In the original document the turbine installation was also quoted as having a 3MW generating capacity. This was INCORRECT. I also omitted an important power generation graph that was included in the company’s original presentation to me. That graph came from the external test house and it showed that the turbines have a maximum rotational speed of 420RPM in a wind speed of 19m/s, giving a maximum generating capacity of 6kW, (which by the way, is well within the capacity of the turbine’s alternator, which is rated at 13kW) 125 turbines at 6kW per turbine = 750kW total capacity (NOT 3MW as originally stated) Wind Turbine maximum capacities are based on an assumption of constant wind speed over 24 hours (just like solar panel maximum capacities are based on the assumption that it will always be sunny during operating hours). The sums for the turbine installation therefore work out like this : 750kW for 24 hrs = 18,000kWh per day So, although the generating capacity of the turbines is less than the solar farm, the rated available operating time is 4 times greater. That means that the overall generating capacities for the 2 installations are indeed comparable. Alpha 311 have conducted extensive testing on their turbines with external test houses over a three-year period prior to investing heavily in tooling to set up production on multi-million-dollar contracts with large corporations who, you can be assured, will have done their own due diligence on their investments before signing on the dotted line. The folks at Alpha 311 assure me that they have seen the operational performance of their turbines with their own eyes, and they stand by their numbers 100%. Ultimately, unless you enjoy standing in a court room being sued for misinformation and breach of contract, it is generally sensible to ensure your product ‘does what it says on the tin’, and having now spoken at length with the Chief Executive of the company, I am satisfied that Alpha 311 are acting in good faith. I would also like to directly address the less savoury comments from one or two very ‘animated’ commentators who felt the need to post multiple defamatory comments about me personally. For the record…I am not affiliated in any way with Alpha 311. This video was not funded, sponsored, or paid for in any way by Alpha 311. I have never, and will never, accept any payment or sponsorship from any company for any services or endorsements on any of my videos. I have never, and will never, monetise any of my videos. So, this video, just like all my videos, attracts ZERO revenue for me. There is absolutely NO incentive at all for me to intentionally post spurious information. I am however a human being, not a robot. Occasionally I make mistakes like everyone else. And when I do, I always hold my hands up and do my best to make reparations. I hope I have managed to do so in this instance., Many thanks. Dave Borlace (Just Have a Think channel operator)

I keep hearing this… the point that was made at the very end… people want to put down any idea for energy generation that is small and local by pointing out how it can’t possibly replace the large central energy producers we currently have. As pointed out, people need to embrace these “complementary” sources of energy. Energy in the future has to come from many sources, not just one huge monopolistic fossil fuel power source. We need to keep inventing, innovating and thinking of new ways. Use them all.

Just set a few up in any House of Parliament there will be enough wind to provide energy for the whole country.

I live in Southern California where we have lots of wind. I’ve been watching the development of these wind turbines for over 10 years and finally they are getting small enough to make it feasible to put on top of houses. If we had these along our freeway systems, imagine the energy produced!

As a retired highways foreman, with many years in civil engineering, I've been an advocate of thiis esentually free electricity production since 1980.

They use this technique in Japan to keep roadside reflectors clean. The have little rotating brushes on the reflectors that are powered by traffic wind.

Perhaps someone has suggested this already, but this system on the London Underground could be very efficient.

I have some decorative “wind spinners” and was surprised at how much they spin. I didn’t realize how much the air moves where I live. I would love to see these VAWTs produced for use by houses.

I thought of this back in the nineties while sitting at a red light in the left turn lane. Large truck were going by at high speed and actually shaking my car with their turbulence. My idea was to turn soda pop cans into turbines and line them up on top of the concrete fences that edge our freeways in the US. There could be a mini-turbine every 6-12 inches.

I love your videos. Always solid content but I especially like your soft manner of speaking, quickly moving through the facts without repeating yourself. You quickly cover all sides to the story. Pros and cons. Thank you.

As a 'mainly former' Motorcycle rider of four decades I can certainly vouch how much power is generated by large vehicles on our roads.

I use to live nextdoor to the guy who invented the vertical axis turbine. He had one on his roof that would spin with virtually no wind. A 3mph breeze was plenty to keep it moving. It was hooked to an old tractor pto that ran a 1" shaft with a square lug on the end (same as fits a 1" socket receiver). At 3mph, two full grown men couldn't even slow it down by grabbing the shaft. He liked to watch us shower through a window though...we didn't talk much.

Great minds think alike! I came up with the same idea in 2019 after driving up the M6 and seeing the opportunity to harvest the wasted airflow. I’m just glad that someone had the initiative to act upon their ideas, unlike myself 👍

IDEA!!!!,, Having grown up in down town Boston, one of the things that always look me by surprise was the huge wind currents you would encounter just walking around the huge buildings downtown. Mounting these types of generatos on the sides of key building in a city would make sense.

I was just thinking… a neighbour has a vent for his loft space. It has a rotating ball shaped vane that turns when the wind is blowing. Replace this with a larger version to generate even more off the roof. What a great complement to Solar PV. I don’t think the birds would complain. When can I have one? Excellent video.

Thanks for your comment on waisted energy. Finally someone understands, I've been talking about that for years, and people called me crazy.

Cheers to the RU-vid algorithm for bringing this clip to my attention. Thank you for a very informative and inspiring video!

A constantly spinning stator cannot operate for few years yet 25 years. There are similar street lights in Istanbul. At least 10% of them get stuck or stop working frequently. Since they are spread across several kilometers, maintaining the system is hard especially in a public road which increases the prices.

I've had this VERY idea for many years now.. In addition, I believe overpasses could be constructed (or retrofitted) with turbines underneath to capture the same wind energy being generated..

Seems to me yet another brilliant idea and especially useful for home installation as it’s less of an eyesore.

So many houses around here are having their chimney stacks removed and tiled over flush with the roof as they move away from coal. I quite fancy the idea of chopping the chimney stack and replacing it with one or two of these.

Question: wouldn't the vehicles need to push harder, and use more fuel, because of these turbines? Yes there is always wasted airflow beside the traffic, but would the vehicles need to spend more energy than the wind turbine will extract? If that is not the case, which I hope is true, this is a fantastic idea! Thank you for the amazing content!

Bloody marvelous bit of creative thinking. As a road cyclist I am only too aware of the energy that comes from a body moving thru the air. I wish them every success.

I’ve often thought about these next to railway lines. It’s a more controlled environment and there are miles of high speed routes where these can be removed from view.

Due to our pandemic life is more difficult and boring, just have a think on Sundays is informative and is a shot for my mental health. Thank You

Put them beside airport runways so turbine thrust would spin them. Corners where planes turn to take off could give them a real spin.

I have watched this channel on and off for a while now. The presentation is always educational and well put across. I found this episode to be very interesting and these turbines appear to show great promise. Thank you for producing such a great channel.

I thought of this about 30 years ago while talking with my brother who owned one of the first solar companies in our state. It just made so much sense, and we thought that local and state governments could lease the medians where these would go and make money as well. I wondered if it would ever be done, but now is finally the time.

Actually here in South Africa those little turbines are very common. They are used in combination with solar on major roads to power cameras, communications and other devices.

Brilliant! Thanks for shouting out Rosie's channel as well. She makes brilliant content and has come so far over the past year!

Futurists have been talking about this very idea for at least the past 15 years. It's really nice to see someone developing the idea. If we lined each side of our U.S. expressways with them, it would genera a VERY significant amount of electricity.

you are a wonderful person dave, an absolute joy to listen to, i could easily sit here and listen to you waffle on for hours about all sorts of awesome stuff, your joyful character, pleasant demeanor and unbiased outlook on the subjects you present certainly make me .....JUST HAVE A THINK.....

I got another one for you. Decades ago I saw the following in Popular Mechanics magazine. They proposed putting pressure plats in the highway system before tollways. Cars had to break and slow down anyway. As cars drove up onto the plate it would depress the plate and pump hydraulic fluid through a pipe to the side of the road. The fluid would then run a generator. Basically, anywhere you have high volume traffic and autos need to slow down anyway pressure plates could be installed to assist in slowing down the cars. For example, exiting onto an off ramp from the highway.

I need these for my manufactured home community. We have 55 homes and would be incredible to see it completely wind powered.

Something I didn't catch you mention, is the likely fact that the overall gas consumption will increase on the road. Putting obstacles alongside the road is to me pretty obvious makes the "air friction" increase.

I think the concept is brilliant, imagine attached to light poles with inbuilt power gathering source. Near trains, airports the possibilities are endless

I don't think I've ever seen a RU-vid channel that the world desperately needs before. I've also never seen a RU-vid channel where I learn something compelling with each video.

Great video Dave (as usual) and thanks for the shout out 😁 Looking forward to seeing how these early turbines go in the long term!

Making a sort of marathon of your 2021 videos ...I always find comfort in your tune, focus, and input you put in all of them. One thing I was hopping to know in regards to this type of turbine and its deployment, is if there is any calculation on how much potential does it provide in highways and telecom towers. Besides from that. thank you for the fantastic job!.

I had this idea some time ago and I am so happy to find that others are proving it works, well done Alfa 311.

Living in the crazy windy, traffic damned city of Cape Town , with rolling blackouts constantly looming I had this same idea for street lamps last year!! Awesome to see someone actually built a working version! Perhaps I should actually pursue figuring out a diy version and see if there is any real local interest

I visited Kyoto, Japan in 209. They were setting up a group of these turbines along a windy island. It sure is a lot more pleasing to the eye than the tower turbines we usually see.

This inspired me to look at my energy usage since Oct 2021. Living alone in a 1 bed flat, my energy use Oct to the end of Jan was an average of 6.5 kwh per day. With a small unit charging a 10-12 kwh battery pack I could probably be OK. Would like to try it.

I have returned and watched this for a second time. Definitely a very exciting prospect.

if you put your hand out of car's window at 100kmh you can feel each of posts by hitting it's still-air pocket. i am pretty sure these turbines will show bigger gas consumption in automobiles moving aside it. even electrons behave different when physicist observing it ;)

It seems like trains and subways would be good candidates for these as well.

Brilliant idea. Thanks for highlighting these turbines.

So many applications for this kind of solution. The biggest constraint to me is the presence of existing infrastructure. Hopefully there will be enough around for this company to go global! Professional video, as always, Dave. Cheers from Chicago 🤙

Grade school kids have been wondering about why you can't put wind turbines on cars and recoup some energy for decades, in hind sight it's astounding no one thought of put the turbines on the side of the road sooner. This seems amazing and utterly worthwhile, I can't wait to see it on the side of the road

We definitely need this on our Autobahns here in Germany.

Who hasn't over the years thought of things like this?There's a section of motorway near us which has a dual carriageway underneath.The movement of that section I have thought should with some clever bods working at it click on a generator of sorts to provide energy! Although it is above my head your output is very encouraging and a welcome treat.Thank you.

I really like this situation-specific turbine design, combined with situation-specific extra components, powered by said turbines. Very elegant.

Thank you for producing such great, informative content and especially for presenting it in a way so positive it makes me believe in a better future. It really helps me to find a somewhat healthy balance considering all the bad news and harsh realities we are confronted with on a daily basis

The second you revealed this idea.. I went OMG.. what a genius idea... Reusing the energy already being generated. Basically Recycling Kinetic Energy. You could put this on every Freeway, roadway, side street.. etc.. and pump the power to nearby homes. Fantastic Video!

Great video. All those uses for them definitely outweighs any drawbacks.

They would be popular in Perth Western Australia, known as the Windy City.

I live in Texas and it is windy all the time, I need a couple of these on my home.

I came up with this idea when I was 11 years old. I'm 43 now. People told me it was a stupid idea when I was a kid. Makes me smile today, seeing that... This was not a stupid idea. Cheers :)

Bunkers !!! It's all Good and Exciting, Thanks, David San Fransisco

I can't click on your videos quick enough! I love your way of presenting information, so clear and precise.

All I have to say is WOW. Blown away by this turbine and especially the power output in a day from one. What an invention

Love this channel. Every video gives me a little bit more hope.

Another enjoyable video. Thanks!

I've seen this idea kicked around from back in 2013 or earlier. In tunnels and at the edges of overpasses, down the center separator. Glad to see someone actually putting it to use. The efficiency is still an issue for home use. Cost per kwh data is missing. A lot will ride on that.

You could have also looked at flower turbines. It's a Dutch company that makes quite esthetically pleasing small scale vertical wind turbines. Those can also be placed next to each other in a certain pattern to make them more efficient.

As always flawless argument😀

Would love to see this technology become available on a residential-sized scale. After that? Perhaps small, portable units that could be used by campers, caravaners and van-lifers to boost their off-grid capabilities when in favorable locales like the U.S. West. Something small and light enough to be popped on the roof while camped, and easily broken down for travel.

Your production is equal to professional TV networks. I'm surprised PBS or a major Cable Network hasn't approached you!!

..I’ve been asking this question since I was 8yrs old... I first thought these should be standard on airports / airfields... massive amounts of energy not being harnessed🎯💯

Oh god. I’m listening to an English man talk about renewable energy at 4 am again.

These ideas you’re not alone but it so overwhelming how to implement so thankful to you

Fantastic - so much potential. What about using them in the London underground tunnels as the trains rush by?

Just 'Ave a Think - very pleased to have found your channel.

I've been interested in these for a while, i think they would reduce noise and probably look better too. Many busy freeways have walls now which probably cost more than some vawt.

I just discovered your channel on RU-vid, and I am really enjoying it. Thank you!

If they're currently working on that, I'd love to see if they can actually come close these numbers in the field. Maybe you can keep an eye on it for the future?

Sometimes a video comes along that poses an idea so obvious that it makes me feel dumb for not having thought of it myself. This is one of those! Man, what a cool tech! I really hope this takes off. There are so many millions of miles that this could be applied to!

Great job as usual. Thanks.

This is just freaking brilliant!

I’d love to see the fins of those highway turbines built of bamboo. Perhaps each fin could be made from a section of bamboo steamed into the correct curvature - green, renewable, biodegradable yet capable of withstanding years of weather, cheap, and lightweight.

I think this is an incredible idea - hopefully, the performance targets are achieved. 😃👌👌👌👏👏👏👏

This is your great use of lower output sources of power. I look out my fromt window at a wind farm on a ridge a few miles away that is in use less than 50% of the time. This type and style of generator looks to have so many applications.

I love this idea. I live along an arterial roadway in the car-centric hellscape of north America and I can just picture the 24 hour energy that can be produced by these along the 60km/h road right outside my window, or the 80km/h highway only 20 blocks away. Not just that, there's also a 100km/h highway that circles the entire city where motorists often go 110, the amount of clean energy capable of being produced in just my city alone is astounding, let alone every city in North America and Europe. They could even be installed along train lines in better designed places like Switzerland or the Netherlands!

Thanks for sharing the cool video. This is a GREAT idea; I really hope that it works out as well in practice as they think it will! This could also solve another issue that we're facing here in the US: taxes on gasoline are used to maintain our roads. As more vehicles shift to electric, our wear and tear on the road remains constant but our maintenance budget shrinks. If those same roads could harvest energy from passing cars, that could be sold back to the grid in order to help cover road maintenance costs!

Your lighting and audio are virtually perfect.

I would think tunnels and bridges would be the ideal spot for them (think along the lines that the motor shaft doesn't have to be vertical). Added bonus of having a moveable surface, travelling in the same direction as the vehicle during an accident. I can imagine vehicles hitting and rolling along them instead of bouncing off hard surfaces.

What a brilliant idea !! Every house should have these vertical turbines . Brilliant

The retrofit approach is genius.

I have seen a lot of big city streets that have become wind tunnels because of the size and orientation of the buildings. Also the summer heated air raising from the streets might power a system like this.

A very nice presentation, thanks.! As a former very small scale DIY constructor of horiz. and vertical type. 12 V generating and water heating modules I've been wondering since my arrival in Canada almost 50 years ago why none of the electrical ingeneers there gets the idea to install any lightweight vertical turbines into the very hight steeltowers of their extremely long transmission lines. Canadas' subarctic north is very rich in hydropower but the main problem are the thousands of miles of distance to get this invisible Gold flowing into the southern provinces and into the American grid. The funny thing is that half of those powerlines run from windy hilltop to windy hilltop and the support towers have already been built. The increased ancrage necessary to avoid storm-caused tipovers can be added with much less cost than the loss of power caused by the resistance in the wires which could be counterbalanced by boosting transmission by the power added via the vertical turbines. I mentioned this idea 30 years ago to a an engineer of the local powercompany but he only smiled. what else can you expect ?

In a nearby city they installed 2 regular smaller wind turbines at city hall. People complained about the cost. It didn't generate enough and were taken down before they could be paid off.

Could fit one of those vertical turbine thingies in the alley between my house and our neighbours as the wind is always funnelled down it. Only, one drawback, the Missus wouldn't be too happy as I'd have to move the dustbins elsewhere!

Great insight into an honestly obscured method of energy generation. While large solar, wind, and nuclear installations are the key areas of investment and development that ought be prioritized, these types of technologies are crucial in making our energy sector more resilient. The decentralization of power generation, while it comes with its own hurdles, allows for a more versatile and reliant power grid.

You and your youtube site are fantastic. Keep up the good work!

Here in Valencia there is a plan to install these turbines in a tower in the marina entrance to supply all the power needed by the marina itself. It is planned as a prooving ground for the system developed by the university here but is a fine example of what you have detailed in this video.

Am I missing something? By taking energy out of a vehicles slip stream wont the vehicle have to work harder/become less efficient to compensate? You only have to stand in a tube station when the trains coming to realise how much energy is used to push air out of the way and the more that air is impeded the more energy will be used.

I'm happy I found you - well balanced commentary, well presented, a product with great potential = a new subscriber

One idea would be to not slow down the wind but make the sides of the road more aerodynamic so the wind speed stays high and saves fuel/energy.

Here! Here! About time someone came out with this!

Great news. I wish them success with this project. Good presentation too, thanks.