Flying Windmills

Posted: April 9th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Green, wind power, windmills | No Comments »

When most people think of windmills, their thoughts turn to tall towers with propellers on them. In the spirit of thinking out of the box, someone came up with the concept of a flying windmill. Now, I have several problems with this idea. First, this thing weighs 1,100 pounds, and it is flying. Not that I have a problem with heavy objects in the air, mind you, but this is supposed to be harvesting energy, not wasting it. I imagine that they get it in the air by powering the rotors. The whole thing just seems like it uses more energy than it generates.

You can thank the folks at Sky WindPower of San Diego for this lofty concept. Let’s just be glad that they aren’t trying to reinvent the San Diego singles scene , because that could get messy. I mean, last time I went to San Diego, the most memorable things were homeless people and otters.

Gravity Powered Lamp

Posted: March 5th, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: electricity, gravity, Green, household technology, lamp, LED, light | No Comments »

File this one under ‘why didn’t I think of this’ : a lamp that uses gravity as a source of power! To activate the lamp, you put weights in at the top, and those weights push down a rotor, causing it to spin. This spinning motion creates electricity that powers ten LED lights. The lamp runs for four hours per cycle, and produces as much light as a 40 watt incandescent bulb. It has a life expectancy of 200 years if used for eight hours a day.

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