Wind

How IKEA-Style Wind Turbines Could Change Offshore Energy

You know what an offshore wind turbine looks like. A giant pole, three blades, bolted to the seafloor. The catch is it only works in shallow water, around 80 meters or less. That rules out most of the ocean, which is where the strongest, steadiest winds actually are. A Swedish company called SeaTwir

How Kites Could Transform Global Energy Forever

This kite isn’t just soaring gracefully … it’s also generating energy from the wind. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking: “Neat, but don’t we already have an effective and reliable way to capture wind energy?” And yeah, wind turbines have been been big ol’ work

How This TRULY Omni-Directional Wind Turbine is Genius

Small wind turbines, or SWTs, have struggled to get off the ground. Not only is siting more difficult for SWTs, but their low efficiencies rarely justify their high costs. They also have to contend with the same kinds of considerations that your typical turbine does, like noise, vibration, environmental impacts,

Why Does The US Suck at Wind?

The U.S. wind industry kinda blows. Okay, that might be a bit harsh, but the past few years haven’t been great for turbines in the States. 2023 was particularly nasty. The weather got us off to a bad start with less resources to work with in the first

How We Solved The Home Wind Turbine Problem

Whenever I cover wind turbines many of you ask about what’s available for home applications. At the moment, I’ve got both good news and bad news. The bad news is that the current market for residential wind is…less than great. The good news? We have a lot

Why We Need To Rethink Wind Turbines

Wind turbines have a “big” problem. As in, they’re really big: bigger than you might think. One of the latest turbine designs sports a swept area of about 10 American football fields.1 This is generally desirable, especially for offshore turbines. But as you can probably imagine, this makes

Why Are Floating Wind Turbines So Huge?

With the recent news of China producing one of the largest wind turbines yet, with a rotor diameter of 260 meters (853 feet) and a rating of 18MW, it got me wondering why they’re so big. They’re almost defying imagination at this point. Bigger is always better in