[saganite]

The author issues a disclaimer that he has a financial interest in this design.

[Izzy Dunne]

the typical propeller-like, horizontal blades.

I suppose he means horizontal SHAFT, as most turbines have the shaft horizontal, and the blades are vertical.

[JimRed]

I invented that 30 years ago! Too bad I wasn't smart enough to patent it!
:^(

[r9etb]

Sounds like a savonius rotor approach. Back in college, I had a couple of classmates who did a project on this.... It's a pretty old idea.

There are a lot of potential advantages, including fewer moving parts. For example, it's not directional, so you don't have to include a swivel behind the rotor blades.

The biggest issues would have to do with getting sufficient "wetted area" on the airfoils.

[r9etb]

Because the generator is near the ground where it is easily accessible, the maintenance costs on a TMA design are considerably less of what they are for a horizontal design where the equipment is high up in the exposed air.

They'll have boundary layer and turbulence problems, then.

[pabianice]

Full Details

[visualops]

Sounds promising, but can they get past all the "not in my backyard" people who want to have their cake and eat it too?
What I find particularly interesting is the eventual underwater version.

[ridesthemiles]

I pulled up their website. If the photos there indicate the structure, they are much larger than the one I posted about earlier. The one I have seen in SF Valley is about 8 times the size of a telephone pole, and has vertical slits for the air to get in and turn the shaft. I don't know who owns it or what it cost, but it is very unobtrusive.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Interesting. Very interesting.

I like the points brought up, and the rather straight-forward presentation of the improvements.

less "hype" in the writeup (after words) generally means more thought in the design (beforehand) = more success in the field (bottom line).

[Robert A Cook PE]

the little (almost unnoticed!0 key to their entire scheme is the "pull" of the blades FORWARD as they pass into the wind, combined with the PUSH of the blades BACK (away) from the wind that you'd naturally expect. Naturally, the writer skipped right past this point, but I'll bet it's why they are more efficient at low speeds: no "drag" of the prop against the wind as the blade turns as in a conventional vertical turbine.

A sailing boat's sail do the same thing: much of the sail's pressure (forward) is from the suction of the wind passing in front of the curved sail when the boat is sailing at an angle from the wind.

That's why "wind directly astern" is not the fastest direction of sailing for anything but a square-rigged single masted, single sail boat.

[syriacus]

Thanks for posting this. I have a feeling that the appearance of wind-powered generators will change quite a bit, as the idea catches on.