When it comes to technology we like our complex solutions and have run the gamut with alternative energy these past few years. Everything from the collection of atmospheric static energy to 300 foot turbines on tethers . The complexity of these concepts is so great they require tens of millions in development testing to even consider them practical yet alone to build someday in our lifetimes.

A recent publication, Metropolis Magazine, challenged its readers to present a solution to fix our energy addiction. Though thousands of ideas were thrown into the mix of all but a few well thought out propositions the winner was so simple it’s dumbfounding we don’t already do it!

Three French designers proposed the concept to simply place turbines right directly on existing power infrastructure towers. How many electricity towers are in the US? I couldn’t seem to find the answer to that question but I’m sure it’s an immense number in the hundreds of thousands. In my search I did find this great page of some interesting tower pictures from a photographer. Add cellular towers to the mix and the number of available generator towers for simple plug and play wind generators almost doubles.

Unfortunately the response to this simple solution was bombarded with structural integrity issues, tie in to the transformer problems and more importantly who then maintains them. But in my opinion these burdens are substantially less than those faced by most alternative energy solutions with millions in government funding being spent daily.

For the full article: http://www.metropolismag.com/nextgen/ng ... le_id=3824