Taming the hype: Beating Betz?
Travis and his girls are off getting a horse in Arkansas this week, and we are going back home to see the kids and our new granddaughter for Christmas. Paul Gipe brings you the following :
By Paul Gipe
Poor Albert Betz, the German physicist must be turning over in his grave. He’s been beaten yet again.
Seems like it is becoming almost a weekly occurrence now that some inventor or another announces they’ve beaten the Betz limit for the aerodynamic performance of wind turbines. The latest is the so-called Windtamer from Livonia, New York.
Betz, following in the footsteps of his British colleague Frederick Lanchester, calculated that the theoretical maximum energy a wind turbine rotor can extract from the wind is 59% of the energy in the windstream.
Windtamer says they not only beat Betz but they will produce twice as much as a conventional wind turbine. However, a quick scan of the “report” justifying Windtamer’s claim reveals that the turbine’s performance is not any better than all those wind turbines that have gone before.
But first, the famous press release. http://www.wind-works.org/SmallTurbines/WindtamerHypeNeedsTrimmed.html
Related posts:
- Busting Wind Turbine Ratings
- 400 watt Air-X Wind Turbine Arriving
- Micro Hydro, The Other Renewable Power Source
- Bogus Wind Turbine Marketing Claims
- Dan Fink And Dan Bartmann: Homebrew Wind Power Book Review
