6月20日VOA聽力：新型風力發機電不會傷及鳥類
In 2002, Spanish inventor David Yanez saw a shortfilm about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the U.S.,collapsing in strong wind.
It was a vivid example of the powerful vibrationswind can create when it blows past a long pole, suchas a car antenna or even a stick of bamboo.
That gave him the idea for a new type of wind-energy generator.
“The initial philosophy or spirit was to create a generator of dreams that had all the qualitiesone would want:
It should be as cheap as possible, need as little maintenance as possible, the setup as simpleas possible."
Yanez and his friend Raoul Martin took the idea to an engineering firm, where they were told itwould never work.
Undiscouraged, they started experimenting on their own in a small wind tunnel they built.
Good initial results were repeated by a larger working model called Vortex installed in a nearbyfield.
“What we have is a mast, which is the top piece and acts as a blade.
It's constructed from the same material as a conventional generator,and what it does is itoscillates,transmitting the oscillation to a conventional alternator,which by its own oscillationconverts the wind's energy into electric energy.”
Yanez said the output of the 6-meter-tall generator, and even that of smaller models, wasbetter than expected.
The Vortex creates about 30 percent less energy than a comparable bladed wind turbine,but itis lighter and cheaper to build and maintain.
It is made mostly of reinforced plastic and has very few moving parts.
Also,it does not create noise and-even more important for many environmentalists-it does notpresent a threat to passing birds.
The current prototype works at wind speeds ranging from 1.5 to 7 meters per second.
The inventors say the next step is building a 12.5-meter tall bladeless generator with a 4-kilowatt capacity that could power small businesses or individual homes, or providesupplemental power to a main grid.
The commercial version of the Vortex Bladeless generator should be ready for the market by2017.
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