I never really thought of windmills as being something that I couldn’t bear to look at, so I’m not completely sure why everyone’s excited about these new windmills from MIT. The concept is simple enough, they want to tether large windmills to concrete blocks way out at sea. This way, nobody would have to stare at them dumbly windmilling.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which assisted Dr. Paul D. Sclavounos in this project, says that the windmills would be able to withstand hurricane-force winds and can generate twice as much electricity per installed megawatt as the currently proposed near-shore turbines because wind is stronger farther out at sea.
MIT designs ‘invisible,’ floating wind turbines [C-Net via engadget]