Ed Begley Jr. and Jay Leno are getting Maglev wind turbines. Apparently the Maglev have solved that pesky bearings wearing out problem with vertical turbines.
Its not just the wearing out of the bearings - the drag from the bearings is pretty significant in a vertical windmill. I helped to design and build one for my senior project many years ago and one of the biggest problems (and expense) was getting low friction bearings for it. Our windmill didn't work, but we still got an "A" because we wrote a good report explaining why it didn't work.
Having some experience in small scale wind,,, I will remain politely skeptical UNTIL they have an number of units in real world service, with some meaningful output and reliability numbers to go along with the hype and vapor ware. Icarus PS I support and applaud the efforts of these start ups,,, but no RE system has been over hyped and under performed than small scale wind. There are a very few systems that homeowner types have installed, and been happy with after a number of years. The reality is that people over estimate the amount of wind they really have, manufacturers over estimate the output of their machines, and the fact that these machines live in harsh environments, and have tons of live loads makes them historically not very reliable. Mag lev would be a great step forward in this regard, but VATs have to over come many other efficiency issues. You can make a case for inefficient hardware if the cost is such that you can just install more to make up for it. In the case of VATs they haven't crossed that barrier yet.
