Interesting portable wind turbine -- looks like a barrel!

Here's a photo of this device:


Click For Full-Size Image.

As usual, another interesting post. Looking forward to the future.

Interesting. Might be neat if it could do double duty as a water turbine for those parked near streams.... XD

There appears to be no price either.

It is a type of a Savonius rotor. It will pick up wind from any direction.

Simple designs use a barrel, split in half and then offset on a vertical axle.

Just another perpetual motion machine. You can't make more energy than was in a wind segment no matter how you redirect it, accelerate it, change it. EVERY CHANGE REQUIRES ENERGY SO OUTPUT IS ALWAYS LESS THAN INPUT.

Anyone sprinkled a little mouse milk on it? I hear that works too. Large milking herds of mice take up less room than cows, and don't fart as much.

pigman1 wrote:
Just another perpetual motion machine. You can't make more energy than was in a wind segment no matter how you redirect it, accelerate it, change it. EVERY CHANGE REQUIRES ENERGY SO OUTPUT IS ALWAYS LESS THAN INPUT.

Anyone sprinkled a little mouse milk on it? I hear that works too. Large milking herds of mice take up less room than cows, and don't fart as much.

Well, you might consider re-thinking this a bit - after all just think of that LARGE herd of mice under your vehicles hood that somehow seem to ‘Perpetually’ keep your starting battery charged - lol

3 tons

I would be nice to know the weight, output at various wind speed and cost.

If we assume it is the size of a barrel of oil, then the swept area would be limited to that dimension.

I believe jet engines use a constriction to increase the speed of the air, before mixing it with fuel and igniting it.

The constriction might allow a lower start up wind speed, but the opposite side of the coin is a reduction in swept area.

For example, an oil-barrel sized Savonius rotor with h=1 m and r=0.5 m under a wind of v=10 m/s, will generate a maximum power of 180 W and an angular speed of 20 rad/s (190 revolutions per minute). (from Wikepedia)

That's a wind speed of 20 mph.

I can't imagine having an oil barrel on the roof at highway speeds.

“I can’t imagine having an oil barrel on the roof at highway speeds”

Could be a ‘show stopper’ at bridges and overpasses too - lol