Sheerwind-Invelox, a ducted-turbine fiasco, officially went bust in early 2018. Incredibly, there are a number of promotional videos still on line at youtube.com and on vimeo. The latter is even more surprising since it’s a pay to use platform. Sheerwind-Invelox’s subscription must still be in force. That won’t last forever.
Daryoush Allaei extolling the wonders of his device in his native land. Note the location of the device–down below the ridge on which they are standing. Also notice that there are some real wind turbines in the background.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the nation’s premier land preservation trusts, isn’t talking about its failed investment in a ducted wind turbine debacle 1,000 miles from Hawaii.
The following are comments to Another Ducted Device Dead: SheerWind-Invelox Bankrupt. They were so insightful I decided to repost them here where they are more easily archived.
My inbox saw a flurry of emails 4 January 2018 to inform me that ducted turbine darling SheerWind-Invelox was bankrupt. While the event wasn’t much of a surprise, it did take much longer than I’d expected.
The Chaska, Minnesota promoter of a ducted wind turbine appears to have fallen on hard times. The fabric covering of the intake duct for their demonstration turbine is torn and in disrepair and the rotor in the duct was not turning notes a passerby who was curious about the highly-hyped design.
Is the end near for SheerWind’s Invelox ducted wind turbine? The problems with SheerWind’s design are coming to a head as its signature clients lose faith.
Sheerwind makes radically inappropriate comparisons between their long-disproven approach to wind generation and actually useful wind generation. The numbers show that they are likely about eighteen times worse at generating electricity from moving air than a truly equivalent wind turbine would be, and will require an order of magnitude more material to achieve that.
The most important tip to keep in mind is that from Robert Gasch. If there is a new wind turbine, no one should pay the slightest attention to it until they “build it, measure it, and publish” the results. Until then, it’s just hot air–and nothing more.
2023 © Wind-Works by Paul Gipe