Green-tech start-up ‘Vortex Bladeless’ has developed a bird-friendly bladeless turbine that can generate clean energy without the harmful environmental impact that comes with large wind farms.
The bladeless turbines stand 10ft tall, with a curve-topped cylinder fixed vertically and an elastic rod. To the viewer, the turbine appears to wobble back and forth, like a car dashboard toy. However, it is designed to generate electricity from the vibration by oscillating within the wind range.
The turbine has already raised eyebrows on Reddit, where it was likened to a giant vibrating sex toy, or “skybrator.” The phallic design gained over 94K ratings and 3.5K comments on the site.
Vortex Bladeless inventor David Yáñez told the Guardian:
Our technology has different characteristics which can help to fill the gaps where traditional wind farms might not be appropriate.
Yáñez highlights that the bladeless turbine’s chief benefit is that it lessens “its environmental impact, its visual impact, and the cost of operating and maintaining the turbine.”
As a bonus, the turbine creates minimal noise at a frequency that’s almost undetectable to humans. It doesn’t pose the same dangers as conventional wind turbines, which kill birds and wildlife and threaten bird migration patterns.
The start-up is currently looking for an industrial partner to create a 140-meter bladeless turbine with a power capacity of 1 megawatt.
Last year, the start-up announced in an online blog post that it intended to manufacture around 100 units by the start of 2021. Turbine recipients include universities, NGOs, independent laboratories, and natural parks in companies worldwide.
Vortex Bladeless explained:
The aim is to obtain measurements, study their behavior in different locations and types of installations, and generate metrics that will allow the devices to be improved and their long-term behavior to be understood according to the variables of the environment.
In 2020, scientists at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research discovered that painting one of the three blades on a wind turbine black minimizes bird fatalities by 72%. However, it seems like these bladeless turbines would be the way to go, possibly bringing that number to 100%.
