Japan: Simple ‘Wind Lens’ Triples Output from Wind Turbines  

Cryptogon has a pointer to a Discovery article on a new Japanese wind turbine design - Japan: Simple ‘Wind Lens’ Triples Output from Wind Turbines. Apparently a worker at Fukushima has died of "acute Leukaemia" as well - Japan: Nuclear Plant Worker Dies of Acute Leukemia.

The wheel in the sky keeps on turning — or at least it will if a Japanese renewable energy professor’s “Wind Lens” turbine design is realized. Resembling giant white rims, these offshore turbines have the potential to produce up to three times as much energy as a standard offshore one.

Yuji Oyha, a professor of renewable energy dynamics and applied mechanics at Kyushu University in Japan, and his team presented their wild vision for wind power recently at the Yokohama Renewable Energy International Exhibition. The “Wind Lens” design is essentially a hoop roughly 360 feet in diameter — a brimmed diffuser — that functions like a magnifying glass. Blades turn quickly within the diffuser, so quickly that they could increase the energy output two or threefold, according to CNN International. One of these “lenses” should be able to power a household.