Are Shrouded Rooftop Wind Turbines the Future of Energy? 

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As a former high-rise window cleaner, spending a lot of time on the side of a tall buildings. I can confirm the intensity of updrafts are so strong that it can prevent us from working a particular side because the winds are too powerful on that side. Although I may not be an engineer, I am the son, nephew, and grandson of engineers. And I think this is a viable and alternative option for energy gathering. Keep up the great work Matt.

With all these new cool micro turbine ideas there is always the question of "ok can I buy it for my home and when?", but usually that is not the case, sadly...

Erasmus was brilliant, he drew the first diagram of the earth with a molten core, he experimented with carriage design, and he did have ideas about evolution. "The Lunar Men" Jenny Uglow

An axiom that came to mind during goes, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." If the design is good enough and does what you need it to at a practical cost, it's useful and worth investing in.

I used to live in a tall building in Oslo and additionally, the building was at the top of a small valley. It was very fun to watch out the window in the autumn and winter, because the leaves weren't falling, but rising and the same with snow in the winter, it always snowed upwards, even on windless days. But another benefit I see in this is that it will inherently be more safe for birds and that they can be made much less visually intrusive. But I'm left wondering if this type of thinking should influence city design itself, so that buildings are specifically designed to capture and redirect wind and guide it to where you can harness it.

I think it was an episode of the program, Grand Designs, the homeowner asked the host what he thought of the his wind turbine. The host looked confused and the camera panned around but no wind turbine could be seen. Then the homeowner pointed out the driveway lighting. Two pole lamps and at the top of the poles were small vertical helical wind turbines. There were batteries inside the poles and the wind turbines produced enough power to keep the batteries charged up. But most of the time the lighting was running off the wind turbine.

I am following renewable energy developments for over 30 years now. During this time there have been uncountable start-up companies with big claims about rooftop wind turbines. All this companies have disappeared again. And this is for a reason, there are just so many things working against rooftop or building integrated wind turbines: * The average wind speed near the ground is just very low. It is for a reason that modern wind turbines are so tall: the higher up you go, the higher the wind speeds. * The winds speeds in the built environment are much more variable than wind over an open field or higher up, and the wind is also more turbulent. This means high mechanical loads on the turbines and power that is more difficult to integrate in a stand alone system or weak grid * Most buildings are not designed to deal with the mechanical loads exerted by the wind turbines. So maybe there are some niche applications, but color me sceptical about mass-application.

I hope this works out. When it comes to any turbine mounted to a building, it is not just about the dB level of the device itself but the amount of the harmonic vibrations passed onto the frame of the structure it is mounted to, particularly as the turbine ages.

I live in a suburban high wind area. Between our suburban sprawl and the true urban area is an area that is more rural than urban. One of those rural houses decided to put up a small vertical windmill (approx. 3-4 feet diameter) about 20 feet off the ground as an attempt to lessen their electricity bill along with solar panels. An article about it was in the local newspaper, and other people started talking about how well this windmill was doing and if they should get one. I don't remember what happened, but I'm thinking the power company was involved. The city passed an ordinance so no one could have a windmill--except the original homeowner, who still has theirs up.

This design have a few major challenges. 1. Still low output after all these complications. 2. High installation and maintenance costs. Everything at the roof costs more everything works faster need more maintenance. More maintenance at the roof costs more. 3. Pressure difference between the sides of the turbine will increase wear and tear. It will cost a lot. Some companies will still put them on top of their buildings just for greenwashing.

The text capture @12:22 is talking about the economic feasibility of a shroud for reducing a turbine's radar cross section, and goes on to state that it only makes sense if the shroud also improves turbine performance. That's a tangential consideration in the context of that paper's actual subject, and doesn't say that the shroud is not practical at all.

My town just built a new water treatment plant; it's broad, and flat all around; when the wind picks up, I bet the roof gets scary to stand on. Perfect place for these turbines! My question is, how will they handle Canadian winters? Norway having similar winter conditions and the turbines being designed there from what I understand, I'm sure it's taken into account. One could argue we have even higher winds in winter in my specific area, too. I wish I had the money to invest in testing cost vs practicality vs efficiency, because I doubt anyone in the Canadian government federal, provincial or municipal level would be willing to take the chance.

My main concern here is that the wind energy that a turbine can extract is proportional to the cube of the air's velocity. That's why conventional turbines are built on tall towers in very windy areas: just a few more m/s gives you huge gains in power. All the turbulence at ground level, which they claim to be taking advantage of, is exactly what makes the wind at ground level so slow, and thus so unsuitable for power generation.

Love the presentation of the new technologies. I have powered my home for the past 13 years with a windmill. Its not fancy but it works. Its a windmill from the Bergey Company. There must be about 100 of these in my area(the High Desert of California) on the way to Las Vegas from LA. When you drive up from LA you see dozens of these from the freeway!! It is a reality that I power my home with wind NOW. MY windmill is at 100 feet. What I am looking for is a way to expand my production for the future.

Rooftop turbines have a HUGE problem - they couple bearing noise into the structure. Very few rooftop wind turbines survive long if the building's occupants have any say in the matter

I went to the website and the most important number for wind turbines is missing - the nominal output. And that will probably shockingly low. There is a reason (actually, more than one) that wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger. The power scales with the area of the rotors. And wind is more stable and stronger the higher you go.

A gent by the name of Robt Murray Smith did a whole YT vid on Darwin turbines and made small one with a 3D printer Vid# 1835. Same concept..

I don't care if it is a new or old idea, I care intensely if it WORKS ! Cost , efficiency, practicality, electronic ( inverter integration etc.) simplicity, etc. HOw much power, how low of wind speed , dtc. Thx , great video !

Well done for recognising that it was Erasmus. The clever parts in the design were the flaps....since it could take slowmoving gusts from any direction and harness them.

El Paso advertisement little girl: "Why not both? ".

Basically it's cost vs output. If I get more watts for what I pay for it then turbines are the thing. But PVs have been dropping in price over decades and are continuing to do so.

I would like to see a chart of windspeed to kW. There is no costs so there is no way to work out any repayment. I checked the web site. They are quite big 2.6m by 2.9 meters. Going up to 4 meters. Like all these small devices I'm not sure they are going to be very effective. I'll put this into the "I'll believe it when I see it category"

We have so miles of highway that could be collecting solar, and wind, too. There is a great deal of air pushed by vehicles on roads in the busiest areas, which could use all the extra power that can be produced. I recall a German company was looking at micro wind turbines, to do exactly that. It was nice to figure out how to use waste heat, too.

A while back I found an interesting study performed by the University of Florida concerning the efficiency of the HVAC condenser fan. They showed how shrouding it improved the overall COP of the system.

When are we going to see self contained systems of a turbine covered by solar panels; with the panels keeping snow and other environmental hazards off the top of the turbine; and the turbine providing airflow cooling to panels?

I think how viable these would be for a home really depend on where you live. Here in Florida it would probably pair very well with solar and a battery back up. I'd have no problems painting one green and putting it up on a giant brown steel pole making it look like a tree in my backyard.

This was kind of all over the place- jumping from one topic to another while assuring the audience that none of this was relevant. Pretty... turbulent.

In the end it doesn't matter if they copied darwin od not, but I'll just say it for the future, you should be more sceptical, people are not to be trusted on their word especially when money is involved. An engineer said those 2 (or 3 if you don't think ventum before implux absoption is vapourware ) wind turbines are the same and he is probably right because he is looking at it objectively (from "how it works" perspective). There are various reasons why implux and ventum wouldn't say they got the idea from darwin (maybe it could negate their patents). implux creator's argument about why it is not a "copy", "one is part of group turbines, the other is a cather tubine...", is invalid; of course, of course it won't be an exact copy. they would be idiots if they just copied it outright. there is 300 years of knowledge and advancement and new tech (static and dynamic tourbines coupled). of course they won't make it from wood. but the idea (darwin's) and the product was proven to work. in the next 300 years people found out that steel is better than wood, no flaps is better, static and dynamic tourbines coupled are better. so now, today, is just a matter of taking existing puzzle pieces and making it whole - there is no breakthrough. it's like me saying I invented pepsi twist, because I like pepsi with lemon but had no part whatsoever in developing pepsi. it's very fishy how ventum approached implux very quickly after debuting their prototype. they had no viable product, it seems to me. no, i am pretty sure. I think they knew of implux, liked the idea, and then made enough changes to be approved patents, but those changes were for the worse (unintentionally, they just didn't know better - in the end that is proven to be true because they absorbed implux design). the purpose of that was to get implux patents at lower cost. it's not the same situtation if a company approaches a person/company and ask to buy patents (originator of the idea has more power) OR first "makes"/"invents" a competitor product (a copy) that would mean that very likely the originator of the idea will never see a penny from his idea. it doesn't matter if the copy is inferior, what matters is which one gets to market first. I am 100% sure that ventum did just that, because their iterations before implux absorbtion look like edison's turbine just made from steel. so by that, please don't ever again say "I know, because they said to me". I like(d) your channel very much, but that is a huge offence in my eyes. facts, facts, facts.

I have 2 attic turbines on my house that tend to run a lot,especially during the 10.5 months of the year when it's warm... I hung an alternator on each with a belt and pulley to turn them... Connected to a battery bank via charge controller keeps my batteries charging basically 24 hours a day during those warmed months... Since I only have 12v appliances,fans,lighting,etc I save a huge amount of juice by not having to run inverters,or converters... Its cheap to do,other than the new pulleys and belts when one uses 2 used single wire alternators,scrap metal to buld the bracketry,and a few bolts and screws... They've been running a couple of years now without any issues other than one belt getting hot due to overtensioning by moi... I also have a high amp alternator mounted to a 3.5 ho pushmower deck ran via the wheel drive pulley belt which cam charge my entire bank in less than an hour and using under .5 gallons of fuel... All built using a scrap mower I got for free and running for literally nothing more than a new air filter and carb cleaning and adjustment,and a used alternator that would've maybe set me back 30 bux at the local junkyard if I didn't have one laying around and a used belt...

The problems with this technology are what weren't included as bullet points: Torque and power. And for all the time and money spent developing this idea, how much better does it perform against something like a squirrel cage fan?

Florida and California have many, many miles of oceanfront hotels that should all have these on their rooftops. I'd bet they could power most of the country if we dotted 2 or 3 of 5 taller hotels along our coasts.

According to the website of Ventum Dynamics, the diameter is 2.9m and height 2m. These things are monster huge on the roof of a private home. Weight unspecified, but they are going to be too heavy for most roofs, and another problem is that the roof must be able to handle the forces from the wind on the turbine. Vibrations go directly into your home as acoustic noise. Annual output is 3000-4000kWh, or the same a normal private home solar-panel installation. Price and delivery are unknown at present, with delivery expected in 2024Q2 (this quarter). I would not put my money on this......

Seems Darwins design had movable slats that closed in the opposing direction guaranteeing all wind to move upwards. You can see this in the drawing at 7:47 the right side of the is closed, where the left lets in the air guaranteeing all air that gets inside it has to go up

I like this design. I think it would do well in windy home locations. I live in Arizona and there are very few days that the winds less than 12mph.

A shroud, a duct and a diffuser are three different things and should not be used interchangeably.

when i was in 5th grade, i thought to look at wind turbines and come up with an alternative to the standard... now being only in 5th grade, i didn't have the awareness of all the different types of wind turbines. When i was in college, i thought to look at the issue again, and discovered VAWTS. It is cool to see that so many are continuing to examine the idea of turbines

The big issue with shrouds is that it... well... blocks the wind you are trying to capture. This puts shrouds into 2 super general categories. 1) block some air mass, but gain additional velocity. So most roof-top wind systems use things like the side of a building to take advantage of a 'natural' (or at least pre-built) shroud to get higher average speeds to allow small turbines to get more output than they would normally. 2) create a long or tall enough shroud to take advantage of a pressure difference. This gives you a sort of chimney/draft effect, which isn't a high speed, but it can be constant even in a no-wind area. While this isn't typically in effect with turbines, it gets used a lot in dry arid climates for passive ventilation. So will this work? Absolutely! Lots of companies are doing this right now, and it isn't particularly unique other than its exterior visuals (probably the prettiest one Ive seen). The big question is if the extra material for the shroud can keep costs low, if the inherently uneven torque on the turbine from the wind-ward side becomes a maintenance issue compared to 'self directing' turbines that point the whole blade into the wind more evenly, or how much markup a trendy company is going to charge for what is effectively (and I don't mean disrespect) a large fan with a plastic box around it. As long as the markup isn't too awful, I think this (and the many other similar options coming to market) can be pretty awesome. Super unfortunate about the Darwin design though. That basically means that almost any yahoo out there can copy-paste their design and claim that they got it from centuries old drawings and not copyright infringement. That is going to be a large legal pain to defend, and could make a low profit margin design simply unaffordable.

As a scientist in a different industry (bio Pharma), I REALLY appreciate this video because it tells the real story behind the difficult and winding road to innovation. Nobody hears about the lifetimes of failures and setbacks that it took to bring a new technology to market. So most people think it is easy to invent, build, and market the next big thing.

I am really rooting for Ventum, and pray they become a force in the industry. First because the rotating swords concern me for environmental reasons regarding the fauna, bats especially. Second because the design for the VX175 is really interesting visually, looking more organic and more natural than the spinning swords. And I do wish in the future, once Ventum becomes a force, that they produce smaller versions of the VX175 for people like you and I.

"as there was no internet or any search engines when I started working on some of my ideas." What about books and television?

I fly FPB drones and the first drones to used ducts had power increases. Over time as they got bigger it created power loss. It is a balance of size. I wonder if a corkscrew or a part corkscrew would catch more wind

I am impressed that you still managed to keep this video so concise.

Decentralizing our power supply is the most strategically brilliant move we can make. As we sit now, one dam going "flush" could potentially cripple the West Coast. I think that encouraging the use and installation of alternate sources of numerous small providers with Grid Following Inverters would help considerably, with Power Companies controlling said Grid. We also need some "Neighborhood Battery Plants" scattered all over to provide precise pinpoint provision of power in areas that would normally have been shut down because no source, but that area's grid is fine.

It would make sense to have a horizontal shaft squirrel cage turbine along the edges of roofs, could be incorporated into the safety wall

It looks something like the fan part of a high bypass turbofan engine, but working in reverse

FYI: Ventum Dynamics is NOT selling their VX175 in the U.S.

DAWTs must measure at least 1.4 meters in diameter, with a double height of 2.8 meters. The minimum roof height for maximum efficiency should be 1.4 times the structure height or 2.8*1.4~4 meters. With such a height of the structure, windage and vibration will be on the stands, since the coefficient corresponds to much higher than most vertical tubrins (and it doesn’t even make sense to compare with horizontal ones). There are no wavy flaps in the pictures and videos, which means there are large losses on the traverses and tips of the blades, wind concentrates. The main question is what is the TSR of this turbine? (Tip Speed Ratio - relative blade tip speed to wind speed). Why did the developers use only one propeller, and not two, rotating in opposite directions? The wind is already concentrated, which means it makes sense to use simple technologies to increase the efficiency of turbines. Why aren't the vertical stiffeners angled at 30 or 60 degrees to further twist the wind and increase lift?

very interesting I can't imagine it would be hard to install these on commercial roofs where there's probably not much going on otherwise.

That picture with the warehouse covered 1/3 in PV and 2/3 wind turbines does look questionable. As in, it's probably more cost effective to cover the whole thing in solar. Where it seems to get interesting is high buildings with the updraft effect. If this gives you more power and/or more reliable power than PV at a comparable cost.

FYI, the EPA recommends an interior noise level of 45 dBA for "health and safety with a margin of error". However, it is problematic to measure interior noise of private homes for noise studies. The EPA determined that a woodframe structure (typical house construction in the US) with an open window would conservatively attenuate outdoor noise levels by 10 dBA, ergo an acceptable 55 dBA noise level when measured outdoors.

It would be interesting to see how this tech fairs in northern winters. We get freezing rain several times a year as well as a fair amount of snow.

Looking at the straight upright parts of the duct, I would hazard a guess that angling them in the direction of turn of the turbine would result in further increase of efficiency as the wind is, effectively, rotatiionally spun up before reaching the blades. I would love to have one or two of these for experimental purposes to see how efficient they are, and with a clutch and multiple motors to make use of differing wind speeds, i.e. if the rpm begins to overrev, add another motor to the array to draw more power, slow the RPM and prevent destruction of the system in high winds, but draw a small amount in low winds.

I thought what was interesting was a solar up draft tower years ago. Wonder what ever happened to the idea.

I would fear any noise from a rotating or otherwise moving thing out there... Or even wind noise when the wind gets very compacted with a very high air speed through something... That could also make some noise. These two things would be my concern if I was a neighbor. As a potential operator I would be interested in the power that I could get, based on the location and wind speed in that area - and the wind speed if I had an appropriate building that has hopefully some higher wind speed at the edge of the roof top... Or would it be better to install solar panels... I have no appropriate building with a roof top against the main wind direction, but favorible for solar arrays... They are quiet, just sitting there...

Almost 5 years ago I bought a Chinese 15KW wind turbine, but with an average wind speed of just 3m/s, it only produced 175wp. You need hurricane speeds to get the 20,000 watts of power. However, behind my house there is a run (small stream) that is about 8 feet wide. Using a funnel is narrowed the stream to just 1,5 feet in width and with the help of my father in law we designed a waterwheel that is powered by the water from the stream pushing the blades of the wheel, this is connected to a CVT transmission with drives the turbine. However this solution is not perfect as the stream only has running water from roughly September till mid April where the water levels are high enough to make the wheel spin. However on average it now produces 2000wp and is a good addition to my solar panels that aren't very efficient in winter. In 2023 we only pulled 163kWh of a total of ~8000kWh from the grid. Last winter we saw only a few inches of snow, but no major snow storms. I understand that Ventum want to harness those cornering winds, but when those turbines are closed so close to the edge, they have to put more effort in the design. Because even when it could my house all year long, aesthetically it is not much to look at which might hurt adoption rates...

I spent some time working on small scale residential sized turbines (

I've often wondered why SWTs were not more common in what I call "Airflow Super Highways." In a city, there are often alleyways where there is almost a constant high speed of airflow going between buildings. As you are in Mass, a perfect example is the corner of Bosworth Street and Chapman Pl. Feels like there is a constant stream of air flowing around that corner, that small SWTs would be able to generate a fair amount of energy almost year round. I used to fight my way up Chapman PL on my way to Barracuda Tavern, even on seemingly calm days. I always imagined these turbines sitting on the corner, along the vertical wall, powering the hotel.

People can independently reach the same idea. Same as crabs.

Fascinating video, it shows that a ton of work went into this one! Thanks to the team as ever for your diligent sleuth work. Having written my MSc thesis on small wind turbines in urban areas at Reading University (UK) in 2008, the topic still intrigues me. Wind power is a great complement to solar PV, addressing the dreaded (and often ideologically pedaled) intermittency argument: "What if the sun ain't shine and the wind ain't blow?" -- you mean no weather at all? doesn't happen on planet earth. Especially, wind power could help us get through the "valley of tears" of the dark winter months, during which solar PV produces precious little. Resilient, robust solutions that are feasible in urban areas have huge potential, even though they may be less efficient than the huge windmills in the landscape. Photosynthesis is typically under 3% conversion efficiency (sunlight to biomass), and yet we could say, it has proven pretty successful.

As someone who's worked amongst large downtown office towers all my life and battled the "wind tunnel" effect, I have always watched developments like these with keen interest - there is a _huge_ amount of energy being channeled through and over these canyons of concrete, steel and glass, just waiting to be tapped. And 100% that the arguments that "well actually you're better off building huge turbines far away" completely miss the mark - because those don't do _anything_ with all that energy that's flowing through _right here._ The question isn't "can something else somewhere else do better?" but "can we take advantage of what's happening _right here_ in a cost-effective way?" Living in San Francisco, where we're overdue for another shaker on the level of 1906 (and having been through 1989 and knowing how _that_ felt, and being aware that it was a _baby_ quake next to 1906), it's struck me that I want to live in an apartment building that's got its own solar & wind (and whatever other kind imaginable) power generation & a lot of long-term stationary battery storage (liquid flow & the like), set up microgrid-style linked up with the local utility, so that, when everything's going well, we can do the grid-demand-smoothing thing, and when things go awry, we can keep our lights & fridges on and maybe help out the neighborhood until the grid comes back up.

My first degree was in Engineering and my first real job was Electrical Engineer. Then I changed fields to Biology and Drug Discovery. From my Engineering background I think this turbine might be a good technical solution IF its installed cost is less than the value of the power it generates. From my Drug Discovery experience I know that when failures are common, we need many companies trying their ideas to get enough successes to make a big difference. So I wish the people behind this idea well. I hope their idea succeeds. I also hope many other smart people can get investors to fund their ideas too, because only by trying many ideas can the best ones be found.

Interesting but I can imagine a numbers of birds and other animals trying to make homes in these turbines.

I really enjoyed this video, including the history involved! I know that not every video, just like not every new technology is quick or easy but this one was well worth the effort!

I think these devices have their place. You mentioned the noise for one turbine. Although the noise might not be greater 55 decibels would multiple turbines create a widespread background noise,? Especially on top of an apartment building. Would the noise be bothersome to the inhabitants if there were 10 or 15 of them on the roof?

What is totally missing are the rentability calculations, costs and expected revenue in comparison with alternative investments in energy generators. Norio's channel does an excellent job in that respect.

The fundamental problem with wind turbines in built environments is the wind speed, hence all the efforts to "multiply" the velocity. You can't beat fundamental physics. Wind turbine design is mostly the function of wind speed and the blade swept area. when you building enclosure to increase wind speed, the swept area decreases. Since wind speed is in a 3rd power relationship, there is some credibility about increasing wind speed to sacrifice swept area, but the benefit only really shows over a certain wind speed.... hence... does the site have sufficient wind speed is practically the only question you need to ask. Wind in the urban environment is sporadic and bad for consistent generation. All the CFD simulations are mostly steady-state wind that does not capture the dynamics of changing velocity and inconsistency, and I have not yet found a building top wind generation project generates as much as they claimed prior to installation. The product shown in this video is probably already pushing for the max efficiency of the design, I hope it works well in the real setting. And there is also the generation frequency thing that requires wind turbines to go from AC to DC and then back to AC (to make sure its 60 Hz in the US), probably canceling out all the efficiency in design.

If it was affordable, for the home, I'd take 2 or 3! Here in South Africa, Cape Town, we have strong winds, often at night. When we have loadshedding and the battery is running low, this would extend our exiting PV systems by being able to charge off grid at night.

Could the excess heat from a server room not be ducted up to allow a constant flow over the turbine and assisting on days without wind?

3:36 there were books though. Regardless if he was inspired by it or not the Internet is not the only way to ever get information.

We need numbers! Startup single speed, how many watts at different windspeed etc.... Most turbines make zero power below 2 meter per second wind speed, if it can't beat that, it's not much good lol

It looks cool, but I wonder how will they fare in winter? What about heavy snowfall?

As a layman this looks much better than a field of wind turbines

I am curious if these could replace some of the spinning vents on rooftops, esp, in the south to use that trapped heat for power?

Seems like it could be cool. I just see a lot of complications. Birds/animals, wear from weather such as hail, snow/ice, the maintenance necessary, the extra weight on the roof. Likely will need extra engineerig for building construction and retrofitting of reinforcements. Upside is power generation at all hours of the day. Seems more of a specific use case. And as always, the problem of energy storage for use when the wind does not blow.

3:38 On the other hand, ever european student has heard of Erasmus, as it is a very popular exchange program.

Darwin's design is better. His traps all the high pressure air, this closing the outgoing lovers and eliminating the flow through loss. They should copy him. Imagine what he could have achieved with a computer...

30% of the Video is how is not Darwinian Design 🤔... Milking it is a understatement.

One of the reason for resistance to wind turbines in urban areas is the rotating blades that is distracting. Hiding them inside a shroud should make them more acceptable in an urban setting. Placing them on top of tall buildings means noise should make this less of an issue. It's estimated that 70 - 80% of people will live in cities by 2050'ish - cities MUST start providing solutions to sustainability issues and become less parasitic on its hinterlands.

Man been using every sponsor for years.... Like the content but the ad plugs are annoying and sus AF

Kudos for not giving into clickbait. Those turbines should be used to power rooftop HVAC

This dude constantly battling *"trying not to get another hit piece video made about him"* vs. *"but need clickbait to make money"*

Concurrent design (albeit a century appart) really suggests discovery more than invention (and validation as well). The designs are based on mutual discovery of aerodynamic principles. I think that's important to highlight because otherwise we get folks who can't possibly imagine two different, completely unrelated civilizations building pyramids, and then run off and say "it must be aliens" instead of celebrating the human discovery of fundamental building techniques. But, to be fair, Christopher Bisset Nelson is, in fact, an agent of the Empire and you can't deny that.

Great show. I appreciate your team's commitment to accuracy.

"It steam engines when it's steam engine time!" :D

i have an almost identical design, save that mine uses a patented multistage rotor, which accumalates the wind and then accelerates it through a reducing volume reverse flow ducting system . increased speed multiple times.

I have greenhouses. There have always been problems with having far too much heat high up in the building where it could not get out. Last year I redesigned one of them with vents in the roof to alleviate this problem it has worked extremely well. The temperature inside the greenhouse is never more than five degrees (F) higher than the outside air. A turbine such as this would work extremely well well over a greenhouse, possibly making it worth adding a greenhouse to a net zero home.

It does not matter if a person knows about an existing patent. But when a person makes something that is too close to an existing valid patent, then it can get difficult... But grandpa Darwin's patent was filed long ago, so the idea is in the public domain now and anyone could build something based on gradpa Darwin's patent. But any improvement however can still be the base of a new patent for a new patent holder with a new expiry, date, of course.

I think being able to take advantage of low-level surface wind is one of the best opportunities we have for renewable energy. And if they can really get 3 to 6 thousand kWh per year out of those units, it's not hard to see how blanketing a city with them could have huge impacts for distributed energy generation.

I love the idea of a small windmill or turbine for urban applications, but my biggest question: the amount of noise generated from this and other forms of wind-driven power generation.

A new study in Nature Ecology and Evolution found that Earth’s most extreme wildfires increased 2.2-fold in the past 20 years, with the last seven years seeing the six most extreme fires on record. New Carbon Brief analysis found that UK governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have missed their tree-planting targets set in 2020 and failed to plant an area of forest nearly the size of Birmingham. Tree-planting is a “significant” part of the UK’s net-zero strategy to compensate for other polluting sectors. By 2050, the unplanted trees would have removed some 8.5m tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, roughly 2% of the UK’s annual emissions in 2023. This shortfall will need to be made up for with stronger efforts elsewhere if the UK’s net-zero by 2050 target is to be met.

The biggest problem with the world today is not the lack of new technologies. It's the fact that big corporations and governments prevent them from catching on, in order to prevent a market upset. There are countless stories of revolutionary technologies where the inventors mysteriously disappeared or died.

I think the decentralizing approach is a good one. It keep the power local, and when you have lots of small generation devices located all over the place, the averaging of the output would make the entire system more reliable.

Thanks so much.. Hats off. YES This is an important and trending residential topic in SF. My daughter has a tesla but not enough sun to justify rooftop solar. She needs a wind turbine on her flat room in the center of SF near Mt. Davidison. We love you channel. We will be staying tuned.

here is an idea for millions of homes in the USA, put a small version of this on top of any regular condensing unit, they have a fan that blows air up, why not capture that airflow one more time and use it to "recycle" wasted energy to charge batteries for use later.... Line the turbine blades with solar panels and increase the production... work with what we already have to make things better.

Perhaps sell this as part of a cooling tower you see on massive HVAC air-conditioning / refrigeration systems, make it as wide as the cooling tower outlet and if any stray winds happen to pass by boom your cooling tower is using less energy or perhaps even generating it.

Ya know, the US used to be completely covered by independent AC/DC wind generators. Nearly all farms in the 1920s and early 30s were self sufficient, generating themselves what they themselves used. Then along came the Rural Electrification Act and all that went bye bye.

Designing a micro Turbine that can work efficiently under very low wind pressure will be the holy grail of wind energy harnessing. I think that this is the ultimate challenge is to design a wind turbine that harnesses wind energy when the wind doesn't blow. Somebody please make it happen! If this micro Turbine can be viable for rooftop (residintial and commercial buildings) then why shouldn't we commercialize it. 😎💯💪🏾👍🏾

They need to put something like that along the freeways. The cars create so much wind, I don’t know why we’re not using all that wind.

Just a thought… mount the wind unit ON TOP of AC or heat pumps… standing off a foot or two. You’d not only have the wind power that you’d get normally from the surroundings but the air coming out of the heat pumps. Preferably for heat pumps as they are running both at times of hot and cold. And because it appears it utilizes side wind inlets,, Mount the wind unit horizontally or at a 45 degree above the heat pump. A heat pump pushes out a lot of consistent air as anyone knows if they are ever near one when running. Share the patent with me when you pass it along to the wind machine peeps. Scott