Japanese scientist aims energy burst from `typhoon turbine`

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New Delhi: Most people look for a place to hide when a typhoon is on the horizon, but Atsushi Shimizu hopes that the fury of nature may one day help resource-poor Japan tackle its energy woes.

As thousands of Australians seek shelter from a "monster" cyclone battering the country`s northern coast, the Tokyo-based engineer believes that his bladeless wind turbine can not only stand up to the raw force of these destructive storms, but also harness that power to generate electricity.

Shimizu`s egg-beater shaped creation -- it has three cylinders and a central rod -- responds to wind coming from any direction and doesn`t use a propeller to spin.

Instead it takes advantage of the Magnus effect, a force that sees air curve when passing by a spinning object, such as a football.

"There are some estimates that wind power has more potential here than solar," said the 37-year-old, who quit his job at an engineering firm to launch startup Challenergy in 2014.

"But we haven`t been able to turn that much of this wind power into actual energy here in Japan."

Japan turned to expensive and polluting fossil-fuel options when it shut down dozens of nuclear reactors in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident.

A quake-sparked tsunami swamped the plant in Fukushima, sparking the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Six years later, a wary public is resisting government efforts to switch reactors back on -- boosting interest in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.

The amount of electricity produced by wind nearly doubled in 2016 from a year earlier, according to a recent survey by the Japan Wind Power Association.

Still, the increase -- 300 megawatts -- can only power tens of thousands of homes in a nation of 127 million.

And wind power`s share of Japan`s total energy mix is still less than one percent.

Shimizu and others are determined to change that.

"After the Fukushima accident, I had to question myself as a Japanese person if it would be justified to continue operating nuclear plants in this country," Shimizu said.Japan`s wind patterns and hilly terrain are not conducive to using the three-blade wind turbines common in other countries. Furthermore, the threat of typhoons can turn these turbines into matchsticks, unlike Shimizu`s more durable creation.

Last summer, Shimizu and his staff tested a prototype of their turbine with a tiny one kilowatt capacity in southern Okinawa -- it survived winds that would usually shut down a three-blade turbine.

But some remain sceptical of the wind turbine`s chances.

Mecaro, another firm in northern Japan, has struggled to commercialise its windmill-shaped wind turbines, which also rely on the Magnus effect, said Izumi Ushiyama, a wind energy expert at Japan`s Ashikaga Institute of Technology.

"A wind turbine like Challenergy`s could be very durable in strong winds, but without operating it throughout the year we don`t know if it could produce more power than conventional turbines," he said.

"This is a very interesting challenge. It`s literally a `Challenergy`," Ushiyama added, referring to the company`s name.

The little firm hopes to start mass producing a turbine with about 10 times the capacity by 2020, when Tokyo hosts the Olympics.

It`s a far cry from the one million kilowatts of energy that just one of Japan`s nuclear reactors could produce.

Still, Shimizu has high hopes for his turbine both at home and in other nations which get hammered by wind-packed storms.

"If we can invent a wind turbine that suits Japan`s environment, we`ll be able to build them in many other places around the world that have a similar climate," Shimizu said.

"That`s our dream."

(With Agency inputs)