http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=10000AFIPDA4&page=1
As an MIT engineering undergraduate visiting the rural fishing village of
Petite Anse, Haiti, in 2004, Shawn Frayne hoped to devise a way to convert
abundant agricultural waste into cheap fuel. But the budding engineer soon
found that the community's mainly poor residents faced an altogether more
immediate need. Unconnected to the local power (Embedded image moved to
file: pic18038.jpg)grid, they relied heavily on dirty kerosene lamps, which
are not only costly to operate but also unhealthy and dangerous. He decided
to devise an alternative -- a small, safe, and renewable power generator
that could be used to power LED lights and small household electronics,
such as radios.
The result is the Windbelt, a miniaturized wind-harvesting power generator
that has absolutely nothing in common with the traditional, towering wind
turbines that dot the fields and shorelines of developed countries. The
simple device was awarded $10,000 in late September as a finalist for the
Curry Stone Design Award, a charitable prize that aims to boost design and
innovation projects for developing countries. Frayne, now 27, also won a
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award last fall, earning him a coveted spot
on that magazine's annual list of up-and-coming scientists and engineers.
Now Frayne and his five-man startup, Humdinger Wind Energy in Honolulu,
Hawaii, are working on turning a promising prototype into reality.
Exploiting Vibrations
"Wind power has pretty much looked the same for the past 80 years," says
Frayne over the crackle of a Skype phone call from Xela, Guatemala, where
Humdinger is working in rural locations to develop production-ready
versions of the Windbelt. After his initial prototypes proved too expensive
or inefficient [or both], Frayne took a different tack, eschewing a
propeller-type design for an entirely different idea. About the size of a
cell phone, the final Windbelt prototype employs a taut membrane that, when
air passes over it, vibrates between metal coils to generate electricity.
Frayne claims it is the first wind device of any size not to employ
turbines.
Indeed, the roots of his innovation are unexpected: Frayne says he was
inspired by studying the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which
dramatically collapsed in 1940 due to powerful vibrations caused by the
wind. The Windbelt harnesses those same dynamics to generate power.
Adaptable to Developed Economies
Frayne's device joins a growing array (Embedded image moved to file:
pic04360.jpg)of simple, inexpensive technologies created for developing
countries that have also garnered considerable attention in the U.S. and
Europe. "Innovations arising from problems in developing economies should
meet the challenges of developed economies, too," says Frayne emphatically.
With that in mind, Humdinger is taking "a market-oriented approach," he
says. That means pitching Windbelt technology as a green way to power
air-quality sensors or WiFi transmitters in new buildings in the developed
world, for instance. "People are realizing that smartly designed
micro-installations can have a big impact," says James Brew, a principal
architect with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a green think tank in Aspen,
Colo. The Windbelt's small size and negligible cost, adds Brew, make it
potentially applicable in developed settings -- such as new skyscrapers --
as well as the more rugged conditions of the world's rural villages.
Though he won't reveal how much funding the group has received to date,
Frayne says it would cost upwards of $30 million in venture capital to
expand the company so it could manufacture Windbelts itself. More likely,
Humdinger will end up licensing the technology to other manufacturers,
which would assume development costs.
Undeterred by the obvious challenges of marketing an entirely new type of
wind power generator, and even though wide distribution is still some years
off, Humdinger is forging ahead. In the past year, the group has
established pilot programs in Guatemala and Haiti as well as
rapid-prototyping facilities in Hong Kong. They are also working on larger
versions that could generate significantly more power. The Windbelt may
have started with personal curiosity, but Frayne's mission has changed
dramatically. "We're really trying to develop the new building blocks of
wind energy (Embedded image moved to file: pic05471.jpg)," he says.
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