The “palm tree” wishful “biomimicry” theme has been around forever. First time I heard it, I fell off my dinosaur. A typical pretend wish of how a turbine should behave. I have a lot of palm trees here, but not that tall. Maybe 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide. They get blown to smithereens at this windy location. 10% humidity at 100 degree F temps in summer don’t help. Nor does the weight of snow in winter. I feel sorry for them, but keep watering, watering, watering, weeding, occasionally trimming, fertilizing. Still, they look too brown compared to ones in less wind-challenged areas, which is just about everywhere. Totally thrashed leaves, fuzzy with dry fibers. Lots of palms in Southern California, mostly in more accommodating environments than mine. If I ever see one with the leaves spinning at 200 MPH I’ll let you know. Speaking of would-be wind energy biomimicry geniuses, what happened to “whale bumps”? Remember Whale-Power"?
Where are they today? In wannabe-wind-energy-press-release-breakthrough heaven, with Magenn, Makani, KPS, and Altaeros? Harvard, MIT, you name it, wind energy can make a fool of anyone no matter the credentials. The biggest breakthroughs still belong to the “farmer with a welder” contingent.