Harnessing the World’s Extreme Energy Sources

*Pic: Atsushi Shimizu with his prototype model of the typhoon turbine – Image Challenergy

Typhoons and Hurricanes are usually associated with exceptionally strong winds that cause mass destruction. However a new wind turbine design from a Japanese engineer may be able to harness some of the planet’s most powerful forces and convert them into useful energy.

In the case of Japan, it has a more wind than radiant solar so it makes sense to ultilise this energy and preferably store it for on-demand use.

Japan is frequented by typhoons so with technology advancements in trial like this it has the opportunity to be a superpower of wind harnessing energy.

According to the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, a mature typhoon produces a level of kinetic energy “equivalent to about half the world-wide electrical generating capacity.”

Since the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011, Japan has been dealing with an energy shortage, and is reluctant to build more nuclear energy plants.

Shimizu’s calculations show that a sufficiently large array of his turbines could capture enough energy from a single typhoon to power Japan for 50 years. Of course storage of such energy appears to be the current challenge, but new technology is rapidly advancing in this field.

Before the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March, 2011, nuclear power was expected to account for 60% of Japan’s primary energy by 2100. Today, Japan imports about 84% of its energy requirements, and many of its nuclear reactors are now dormant, as the country shies away from this energy source.

Shimizu believes that violent forces of nature could solve Japan’s green energy problem as his typhoon turbine differs from conventional turbines in two important ways.

Firstly it operates on an omnidirectional axis that allows the machine to survive unpredictable wind patterns, and secondly the speed of the blades can be adjusted to ensure they don’t spin out of control during a storm.

Tests of a prototype yielded 30 percent efficiency, which is 10 percent lower than propeller-based turbines. The difference, of course, is that Shimizu’s turbines can actually survive a storm. Back in 2013, Typhoon Usagi destroyed eight conventional turbines, and damaged another eight.

The technical issues with traditional propeller-blade turbines is that they are inefficient under storm force winds, and their output frequencies when subjected to such conditions seem incompatible to the mix of baseload network power. The typhoon designed turbine may be the answer to this problem?

Australia is subject to seasonal cyclonic winds, and prevailing yet inconsistent strong winds in its southern latitudes. It may be possible to engineer such a design to harness winds to suit our conditions. Shimizu’s stable load design can harness wind in full capacity unlike the traditional bladed turbine, which has notable issues when they are subjected to extraordinary weather phenomena.

I am not strong advocate for our current wind energy technology, though this design has promising dynamics that could harness kinetic energy under extreme conditions right across the globe!