www.good.is/ecosystem Our planet is a fragile ecosystem. To keep it in balance, well have to figure out how to harness nature to generate clean, affordable energy. Catapult Design in San Francisco has one answer. Their turbines are cheap and practical, and can power a light or charge a cell phone in villages that are off the grid.
Who am I ?
Hi, I’m Erik Astrand and the man behind this site.
My story? I am about to be 50 and all my life I have been interested in technical things. Not sure if the special interest for the wind, and how to use the wind, started when I as a 5 year old boy and got my first sail dinghy.
Anyway, wind power and to build my own wind generator was a dream for several years. I studied many websites and also bought many courses before I finally built my own windmill. This site is about that journey and you will also find some more general articles about wind power.
Enjoy! and check out the about me page to read more.
The problem with these things is that they do not (yet) produce nearly enough energy to supply the entire world. It’s like the thing with organic food, people think it will save the world, but organic farming can only produce food for at max half the world. Nuclear power and genetic engineering is the future.
maggru91 your a fucking idiot and need to be made sterile.
Nuclear power is NOT the future. And a form of Eugenics will take over, namely for the sake of controlling the human population, which by the way, has already exceeded our environments carrying capacity.
why nuclear power? first we’d have to find ways to safely dispose of the waste innit
REally like this! the vertical axis design is compact and great for small power needs.
TheDudeRulez09, how ironic your comment is… also, I wonder if you know the difference between “your” and “you’re”?
themanyone, definitely more attractive than some wind chimes out there and this is actually useful…
nah not really ironic, there is difference between the fact of Maggru91 being a dumb ass and a simple letter left off a word, but thank you for catching that for me.
yay! san fransisco!
Nuclear FTW!
They do actually, harvesting wind energy in just 6-7 states in the U.S could power up all the entire country.I’m sure you could find enough good spot to (maybe) power up the whole world.
BUT i’ll take geothermal energy over nuclear or wind any day =). Clean, infinite and unlike wind or solar energy, you can harvest it at it’s full efficiency 24/7.
Geothermal isnt that efficient to produce electricity, in many countries the heat from the earth is used to control air conditioning warm/cold according to season so you can waste less money and electricity on apparatus. Therefore windturbine are giving pure energy>electricity, not a way to reduce wastage
How can I get a hold of your team. We need to speak.
!!! brainstorm in progress !!!
okay, so they used bicycle gearing to transfer energy from the turbine to the alternator right? stay with me now.. this only SOUNDS silly .. but .. why couldn’t something like this be developed to use a stationary bicycle? or some other piece of gym equipment?
why not attach it to an elliptical climber for example? imagine how much energy a “spinning class” could produce and store!!
Some places are actually doing this! I will try to find the vid I saw about this and share it with you…..but don’t count on my finding it, I am still completely at ends as yet…..go away for a couple of months and DANG!!!
And it may help slow deforestation in third world areas!!! Cutting trees for fuel is a major source of deforestation.
You need to add a storage device such as a battery. This is fantastic, but to really make it practical, it needs to couple its usefulness with the ability to harness its energy even during down time. Then the idea of a coupling device, such as a piece of gym equipment, becomes practical and even logical.
Quite ingenious! Thanks for sharing this with me.
Good idea, but I guess the issue is that people in these areas dont’ go to spinning that much…
right, but lots of other people in other places do.. and those people use lots and lots of electricity .. imagine if you could go to a spinning class, and charge up your lap top battery, your black berry and your PDA all while keeping fit, and powering the health club at the same time…
better yet, imagine the money that the company that copyrights or markets that would make.
No gym equipment’s needed. Just couple a bicycle to it.
you… you are a pure genius!
thanks!
:)
now.. you wouldn’t happen to have a couple million dollars laying around would you?
for final stages of r & d and marketing… there’s a mint to be made here.. and it could make some great changes…
never happen though.. big oil still a major political party ..
I think maybe genius is a bit much.. but I am very grateful .. you just made my night
Peace
can you please send the design of the wings?
tree huggers!