Powering a City It’s
a Breeze.
The graceful wooden windmills that have broken up
the flat Dutch landscape for centuries -- a national symbol like wooden shoes
and tulips -- yielded long ago to ungainly metal-pole turbines.
Now, windmills are breaking into a new frontier. Though still in its
teething stages, the "urban turbine" is a high-tech windmill designed to
generate energy from the rooftops of busy cities. Lighter, quieter, and often
more efficient than rural counterparts, they take advantage of the extreme
turbulence and rapid shifts in direction that characterize urban wind
patterns.
Prototypes have been successfully tested in several
Dutch cities, and the city government in the Hague has recently agreed to begin
a large-scale deployment in 2003. Current models cost US ＄8,000 to US
＄12,000 and can generate between 3,000 and 7,000 kilowatt hours of electricity
per year. A typical Dutch household uses 3,500 kilowatt hours per year, while in
the United States, this figure jumps to around 10,000 kilowatt hours.
But so far, they are being designed more for public or commercial
buildings than for private homes. The smallest of the current models weigh
roughly 200 kilograms and can be installed on a roof in a few hours without
using a crane.
Germany, Finland and Denmark have also been
experimenting with the technology, but the ever-practical Dutch are natural
pioneers in urban wind power mainly because of the lack of space. The
Netherlands, with 16 million people crowded into a country twice the size of
Slovenia, is the most densely populated in Europe.
Problems
remain, however, for example, public safety concerns, and so strict standards
should be applied to any potential manufacturers. Vibrations are the main
problem in skyscraper-high turbine. People don’t know what it would be like to
work there, in an office next to one of the big turbines. It might be too
hectic.
Meanwhile, projects are under way to use minimills to
generate power for lifeboats, streetlights, and portable generators. "I think
the thing about wind power is that you can use it in a whole range of
situations," said Corin Millais, of the European Wind Energy Association. "It’s
a very local technology, and you can use it right in your backyard. I don’t
think anybody wants a nuclear power plant in their
backyard." |
