Wednesday 29 November 2006

Crazy invention of the day

I was sitting in the courtyard having lunch with Deb yesterday. As the wind blew my serviettes and Subway wrapper away, I saw a tall building in the distance and had a thought. They should put power-generating wind turbines on top of skyscrapers.

Now, to me this is a good concept that deserves further investigation. It also seems like one of those ideas that someone somewhere must have had already. If someone has had this idea before, though, it must have been deemed either infeasible or ridiculous, because I've never seen city rooftop wind power implemented.

And I was correct: people have thought of this and actually done it before. However, as this article explains, the structural implications are too big a hurdle, making the idea generally infeasible.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess solar power is the workable alternative.
PPS - But until solar cells are more efficient, it won't make much difference.

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