[HN Gopher] Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small...
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       Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small-Scale Wind
       Power?
        
       Author : thelastgallon
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2023-09-29 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.texasmonthly.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.texasmonthly.com)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | _" Marsh believes he has found a way out of this dilemma with a
       | patent-pending "secret sauce" he declines to discuss in detail,
       | which he says can limit the amount of voltage generated so that
       | it never exceeds what a charge controller can handle, even as
       | high winds spin the turbine blades rapidly."_
       | 
       | That's not usually the problem with overspeed. It's the blades or
       | bearings breaking and blades flying off. If you have a generator
       | with a field winding, you can turn off the field current and not
       | generate much. But then the blades spin too fast with no braking
       | from the generator.
       | 
       | We're missing some key info here.
        
         | detourdog wrote:
         | Sounds like regenerative braking to me.
        
         | sfblah wrote:
         | Couldn't you just let it generate the voltage and then
         | dissipate it as heat?
        
         | intalentive wrote:
         | Why not have something like the multiple gears of a bicycle,
         | and automatically shift gears when it starts spinning too fast?
        
           | pixl97 wrote:
           | The best part is no part.
           | 
           | Transmissions provide a weak point where things break.
        
       | gabereiser wrote:
       | _"My truck is so badass you can feel the ground shaking."_
       | 
       | Such a Texas thing to say.
       | 
       | I had my fair share of wind turbines on my sailboat. Nothing this
       | guy is taking about is 1) new. 2) novel. 3) revolutionary.
       | 
       | What he's trying to do is white-wash and "patriot"ize a simple
       | existing technology. Only with half a brain cell so he thinks
       | he's solving the worlds energy crisis.
       | 
       | Wind turbines are loud. The faster they spin, the louder. The
       | faster they spin the more potential for hazardous blade
       | separation. I once sliced right through a dinghy with one.
       | Imagine if that was little Melody with her stuffed animal.
       | 
       | The future of energy is not physical force pushing propellers to
       | drive alternators, it's capturing (and harnessing) the power of
       | the sun. Solar panels provide 2-3x the output, none of the
       | physical dangers, and are quieter than an ants whisper.
        
         | woodruffw wrote:
         | Without any particular regard for this guy, it seems (to me)
         | like the future has plenty of space for both: the US has a
         | vast, windswept, mostly unpopulated interior where a somewhat
         | noisy wind mill isn't a significant concern.
         | 
         | Capturing some of that energy seems like a good idea to me,
         | especially if we can use it to offset solar's cyclical nature.
        
       | chris222 wrote:
       | This one looks more promising.
       | 
       | https://www.halcium.com/
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-29 23:00 UTC)