There is good news for those eco-friendly advocates and wind-related exchange traded funds (ETFs), as two Cal State Long Beach professors have developed a new electricity-generating wind turbine.

Conventional pinwheel wind turbines are large, crowded together on wind farms, and need headwinds of 22 miles-per-hour, which generate electricity transmitted to urban areas, writes Kevin Butler for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

The bulky size for conventional turbines prompted the two engineering professors to design an efficient turbine that can generate electricity from slower wind speeds in urban areas. Such areas along beaches, near freeways, rooftops, street lights, or billboards are seen as untapped potential wind-energy generating resources.

The professors’ new type of turbine is analogous to the spinning motion much like a police siren. This type of turbine allows for smaller and lighter designs with less vibration.

But the most important part is that it is able to generate usable power at wind speeds of 14 miles per hour. It is also designed so that they may be stacked on top of another two efficiently capture wind gusts from different directions.

There is a small caveat to the professors’ design. Their turbine converts 30% to 35% of wind energy to electricity, compared to the large pinwheeled-type, which converts 40% to electricity.

Nevertheless, if implemented correctly we may see an impact on some relatively new wind ETFs such as:

• PowerShares Global Wind Energy Portfolio (PWND): down 61.7% since July 8 inception

• First Trust ISE Global Wind Energy (FAN): down 65.7% since June 27 inception

Tags: FAN, Green ETFs, PWND, Wind

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