Magenn windmills finds its first distributor+

Since december 2005, the blog community has been buzzing on Magenn and its floating wind generators. The idea was brilliant enough to ignite raves from ecological geeks but wacko enough to make energy experts rant on it. Finally Magenn found its first distributor for its airbone wind turbines. Krystal Planet, based in Kansas City, KS, will incorporate the Magenn Air Rotor Systems (illustration) in its catalogue.

The Magenn founder Fred Ferguson’s idea is based on the design of Hindenburg helium-filled zeppelin. Add it a rotor that rotates on horizontal basis as the wind blows, tie it to the ground like a kite and voila, you can start transfering the generated electricity down to your home.

Miraculous. No more need to wait for a wind blow, the big blimps gravitating from 30 to 300 meters high will slip automatically along the wind tunnels. The stronger the winds will be, the higher the windmill will rise in the air due to the “Magnus effect” (see Wikipedia). The motor will therefore decrease drastically without any danger for birds and bads, as described in the last company press release. The current unit, which stalls in the prototype step of its development, should “deliver up to 4 kilowatts of power at a cost per kWh potentially much lower than conventional wind turbines mounted on tower“.

Doubful. But since his announcement, Mr. Fergusson sparked nothing but doubts. Energy and aircraft experts buried the iniative. “You have to put these things high in the air, and there are airplanes flying around up there. Airplanes and windmills don’t mix,” said Paul Gipe, a U.S. wind energy expert and author of several books on the topic, to the Toronto Star. “He’s not good at carrying things beyond the idea stage,” added a Lockheed engineer working with Fergusson on an other project, also quoted by the canadian daily in the same article.

And the doubt remains the same when it comes to bloggers. “I became suspicious of this company when they solicited me (and probably a number of other blggers) to write about their product. It does sound like a neat concept, but they did not have adequate answers to some of the questions that I posed, for a product that was claimed to be nearly ready for sales,” comented Jim, author of the Energy Blog on the Clean Break blog.

For now, Fergusson could at least count on his two partners: Mac Brown, chairman of Rebel.com ― a now defunct dot-com company ― who has taken the Magenn executive direction. And Krystal Planet, with its “Freedom Plan”, whom CEO aims to “convert America to 100% renewable power in 10 years and save the US economy $20 trillion by 2025“. Time will tell.