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Wind turbines tend to look like windmills or giant propellers, and the design does in fact borrow from that. But that isn't the only design that's ever been tried.
At Sandia National Laboratories wind energy experts are looking at vertical axis wind turbines, (called VAWTs).
VAWTs have a couple of advantages over traditional horizontal-axis designs, one of which is that the drive train mechanism is close to the ground and thus easier to maintain. They also aren't as complicated and have a lower center of gravity. If a VAWT system could be made to work, then it might make wind power cheaper.
Read the rest of the article at Discovery News.
A tip of the hat to the Environmental News Network for alerting us to this article.
Also see this previous Progressive Charlestown article.
