Dinosaurs Help Scientists Develop More Efficient Wind Turbines

It has not been very long since we reported on one man's developing a bladeless wind turbine which both protects the avian population residing in its proximity, and generates significant amounts of electricity.

Recent news on the topic of wind power and efficient ways of harvesting it informs us that researchers working with Siemens have managed to develop a new type of wind turbine whose design was supposedly inspired by animals that ceased to be around quite a while ago: dinosaurs.

Tree Hugger informs us that this team of scientists developed three different wind turbine blade attachments that can simply be added to an already existing structure.

This means that those who are already busy harvesting this renewable energy source need not replace their wind farms entirely in order to benefit from this new technology.

The first of these attachments, known as the Dino Tail, works towards boosting the overall efficiency of the system by increasing the surface area of existing blades, and mimics the appearance of the plates found on the back of stegosauruses.

Apparently, besides improving the blades' performance, this DinoTail also helps make them quieter.

A second attachment, referred to as a Dino Shell, is meant to widen the blade's shape all the way to where it meets the main shaft. Just like the Dino Tail, its goal is to help harvest more energy.

Lastly, a set of fins (i.e. a vortex generator) forces the top of the blade not to break contact with air currents for relatively long periods, and thus increases lift.

Taken together, these three types of attachments can help make your run-off-the-mill wind turbine about 1.5% more efficient than it used to be.

Truth be told, this percentage hardly seems worth the trouble of purchasing and installing these dinosaur-inspired devices, yet things start looking up once one takes into consideration the fact that wind farms typically consist of not just one wind turbine, but many more.

Such attachments are already being installed at two wind energy centers in North Dakota, so here's hoping that they will soon prove their worth and others will also decide to look into the possibility of making use of them.