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Clarkson U. Team Developing Smaller, More Efficient Wind Turbine

Via Groovy Green, Clarkson University professor Ken Visser and a team of graduate students have spent the past six years experimenting with smaller, more efficient wind turbines for homeowner use. Now, they’ve got a working prototype and a patent pending on a new turbine model:

“What we found, first in the computer then in the wind tunnel, that it seemed to indicate more blades and the particular orientation of the blades could give us a better performance than just three blades,” he said.

The research team’s design is now being backed by Warner Energy, of Syracuse. A patent is pending and if the full sized prototype is successful, Visser says all of their research could become a reality.

“They’re very interested in commercializing the technology, which is a huge leap from the lab. You know going from just building some models and testing some things and reporting on some data to actually try to take that kind of technology and and commercialize it into something viable, you know this is terrific,” said Visser.

This will be very interesting to watch, especially since home-scale wind power is being developed in other parts of the world, also. Good luck to Visser and students as they move foreward on this important development. There’s video of this story, also (you’ll have better luck playing it in IE).

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