New wind turbine design

[Tim Grindley]

Is this not the same with the wind turbine generators we have?
Wind varies from time to time and sometimes is so powerful that turbines have caught fire in the past?

Again, since the design can be throttled very easily it is not an issue. There is no upper wind speed limit to this untill the whole thing is ripped off the hilltop.

 

[Jasondb]

The potato bulb power does not come from the potato at all - you use a zinc metal which dissolves in the acid which is inside the potato and that causes the electrons to be produced from the zinc which travel to the copper metal and power the bulb so no energy is in the potato it's just a chemical reaction with the zinc and potato. So sadly no use to agriculture.

I see this differently.
I suspect the Zinc and Copper electrodes have different polarity and polarise the ions in the potato or citrus fruit and when these differently charged ions meet in the filament of the bulb it generates electricity.
If it was acid as the bulbs work immediately you would expect to see some chemical reaction on the electrodes which I have never seen.

 

[The Byre]

No.

The zinc atoms that are in contact with the potato acid dissolve very, very slightly. This causes some electrons to separate from the zinc atoms and positively charged zinc ions and negatively charged electrons, are produced.

If you let the process continue for long enough, the changes in the surface of the zinc becomes apparent.