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Cleveland Indians get a corkscrew wind turbine overlooking their ballgames

Next time one of the Cleveland Indians batter takes a swing at the ball, he better not be distracted by the giant wind turbine that will be spinning around near the ground, thanks to Majid Rashidi, a professor at the Cleveland State University. Rashidi has just designed a prototype wind turbine that will be installed at the ground and this huge helical structure is slated to produce about 40,000 kilowatt hours a year. This specially designed wind turbine is 40 feet tall and 18 feet wide and is designed to fit in with the urban setting without being an eye sore.

Corkscrew wind turbine

Going away from the traditional wind turbine design, the new helix turbine captures wind as it flows and increases its speed progressively as it passes through the turbine structure. This makes the new helix design a lot more efficient than the traditional turbines with blades and even an increase in the wind speed by 100 percent can cause an 800 percent increase in the energy produced by the turbine. The structure that is being installed at the stadium is projected to power approximately four homes for an entire year.

While the prototype took approximately $1 million to build, the future helix turbines might be a lot cheaper to build once they are perfected as a production model and since they are not obstructive, odd and are highly efficient, wind energy might become a viable alternate power source even in big cities in near future.

Via: Cnet

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