Skybrators: Wind Energy Harvesting

Tuesday’s meeting of three-guys-who-interrupt-eachother inspired my gathering the attached information (homework for next week’s lunch).

Today, Richard asked Nader what happened to his bid two years ago to build a monumental civic works architectural project along a dusty, scrappy, nearly abandoned mile and a half of San Jose California’s ugly dry riverbed. The winner was to incorporate, a park-line environment, walking paths and a unique architectural feature to attract visitors along with green-energy and generation. As an example of such a civic works project, Nader referred to the project already built in NYC that looks like an enormous spiraling staircase building upward and outward into the sky (Bear, ask Kristin about it).

Nader did not win. The winner based their design around a new wind-energy-harvesting technology. When Nader described it in general terms, I was astonished to realize that I knew exactly what he was talking about: “Skybrators.” Two years ago, I read all about them in Mark Pratt’s" MIT Technology Review,” and even looked up a few technical papers on Google. What a weird thing to know anything about!

Here is a good general description of the new technology to capture energy from the wind that we discussed at lunch.

Aside from the fact that they look like a gigantic sex toy and make a buzzing sound just like a gigantic sex toy, What’s not to like?

Mark, thanks for making me appear smarter than I deserve by giving me copies of "MIT Technology Review,” Bob

Thank you Nader for the imagery of what the San Jose “Skybrators,” will look like.