Free Republic

What do you get if you take the blades off a wind turbine? A better wind turbine. That sounds like a joke, but that’s actually more or less the model of a new wind turbine prototype. Instead of blades that turn in the breeze, the turbine is just a hollow straw that sticks up 40 feet from the ground and vibrates like a guitar string when the wind thrums by. The Spanish engineers who founded Vortex Bladeless in 2010 said they were inspired by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster (maybe not the best pitch for clean energy to a disaster-wary...

Dyson launches the bladeless electric fan By Paul Taylor Published: October 13 2009 00:09 | Last updated: October 13 2009 00:09 First there was the bagless vacuum cleaner, then the towel-less hand dryer: Now James Dyson, the British inventor, has developed a bladeless electric fan which goes on sale on Tuesday in the US and Australia. The Dyson Air Multiplier fan – which looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie - uses advancements in airflow engineering instead of traditional blades to ‘multiply’ air 15 times and push out 119 gallons of smooth and uninterrupted air every second. As...