vertical axis bold as love...
welcome to the wacky world of
Vertical Axis Wind Turines!

treehugger has this super cute pic on their site today talking about The QuietRevolution; these really hot vertical turbines that light up at night! And, being the TH-junkie that i am, went to comment right away. And i was going to splather the comments with a bunch of links (like I often do- under my typekey pseudonym du jour) 'bout all of these different types of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines.. instead I simply wrote: "VAWTs ROCK THe HOUSE!!" and that was it(!) Besides, it was a really hot VAWT: Carbon fiber ...only one moving part... I may have a new winner in my favorite VAWT catregory.
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There were others... I used to have a thing for that one up there-- still do. My first vawtlove, the Windaus (which BTW STILL has the best homepage for any vawt) was a local one. But like I said, there have been others.. See, here's the deal. They make no noise (ok the mega-huge 1.5MW turbines don't iether), and kill no birds or bats --again with most new mega turbines that isn't a problem, but if you live in the country and want to have a 2KW Bergy or SouthWest Windpower, you will have noise and you will have dead birds... and you don't go to the country to hear a windmill whine.. So again, VAWTs ROCK THe HOUSE!!



...and they have cool designs like mad!!
that one up there, and down there, is actually the current belt-holder for my admiration, and with whom the Quiet Revolution has to contend. it's called the MagWind, and more on that one in a little bit.

But one thing is for certain, a new day is dawning in the world of these VAWTs! There have always been people trying to do something vertical with wind. Traditionally they were called eggbeaters and in theory would make a lot of sense. Even if they looked funny.

But the problem is that physics didn't always agree. They used to rip the vertical axis eventually.. the center poles would rip.. there was always some reason that they didn't work.

That, and then with some that did work, like this one from Montreal that gets juice from as low as 6kmh winds just didn't fly with the public...

(not to say that you can't still order one from them, because you can!)

But over the years many engineers have taken this VAWT thing seriosuly and solved many of the underlying problems.. And now there so many of these companies popping up, it's amazing. And all with different configurations!!

And now of course they are starting to be taken very seriously by investors and VCs. Remember that company, MagWind I mentioned before... OK< Not only do they have this amazing magnet system to keep pressure off the center of the turbine, which (if you've been checking out the little movies here of things floating and all... I needen't tell you) i like very much! But also, guess who's backing them? Ross Perot! Sure maybe he should have bought microsoft from Bill Gates for that $60 Million Gates wanted way back when, but who knows? Maybe it wasn't time for Perot (maybe MS needed Gate's whatever-it-is to become the mechaSys-zilla it now is)? Maybe Ross Perot was meant to become the single-home-unit VAWT king! Anyway, people are taking them seriously and very soon the neigbours will have one. The cats will be petrified.