The wind turbine in your story ‘Whisker with a whisper’ (News, 29 September) is a great idea, but as the rotor is almost spherical why not give it a vertical axis and avoid the complexity of providing alignment with the wind?
R Honnor,
Dereham, Norfolk
Vertical thinking
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I have researched VAWT for some time and for many reasons believe these machines are the way forward in small – urban power generation. However, I am at a loss to understand why the electrical generation is D.C. This output then suffers further efficiency loss to turn it into A.C. Would it not be better to change the wind kinetic energy directly to A.C. for imediate use?