Water-powered turbine generator idea: Strait Power

Strait Power Shark illustration

“designed originally as his senior project at the college for creative studies in the united states, industrial designer anthony reale’s ’strait power’ provides a highly efficient redesign of water-powered turbine generators.”

Strait Power Rendering

“realized, tested, and archived over 130 days, the project involved 711 hours of production work and 200 testing hours, as well as 95,000 USD worth of private and in-kind donations, composed primarily of milling machine time at the college for creative studies and testing time and parts from the university of michigan.”

“the team calculated that the prototype already improves power output of a single turbine blade by 40%, a figure reale expects to improve in later versions.”

But come on, why didn’t he just call it Shark Power? Check out the video too.

This entry was posted in energy. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

2 Comments

  1. Chris H
    Posted February 15, 2011 at 2:41 pm | Permalink

    Very fun video; I’d love to work on a project like that. The design reminds me a lot of the FloDesign turbine — applying an outer guide to increase the flow rate behind the turbine, thus creating a vacuum that accelerates air through the inner tube (thereby increasing the overall energy capture).

    http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21737/

    It’s also seems similar in principle to the Dyson “bladless” fan: http://www.dyson.com/fans/

  2. Posted February 17, 2011 at 1:34 pm | Permalink

    Oh yes, very similar. Thanks for the link. Also, how cool is it that FloDesign’s CEO is named Stanley Kowalski?