If you look at most wind turbines you see a huge propeller on a pole. At any given moment the propeller covers a very small percentage of area involved in it's entire sweep. Just by looks it can't be much more than 5% of surface area. Per revolution, the blades are only coming to contact with a small % of wind that actually passes by the circular area it sweeps. Most energy is missed entirely. This makes me wonder why the propellers aren't built in a way to capture more of the available wind in a sweep. I imagine it has to do with the physics of how a propeller system works. Also, anything that "caught too much wind" would probably create a lot of strain on the structure itself, and they are designed this way to keep it from breaking or "blowing over" - so to speak. Thus, in my mind, the current design of wind turbine are probably massively inefficient and a whole new design approach is needed.
All of this lead me to revisiting this website:
http://www.magturbine.com/The claims of this website are astounding and may very well be fairy tale. However, what's interesting to me is the monstrosity that is supposedly going to be their version of a wind turbine. The key thing about it is that a freeze frame snapshot of it's cross-sectional area shows that essentially half of the wind passing by it will be hitting the power grabbing "propeller" part of the turbine (the other half moves against the grain). It will endure massive cross sectional force and would therefore have the potential to haul in a shitload of energy. If it becomes real and is not just fantasy, it will be made possible by two things (I think).
1.) the main axis is vertical, not horizontal, and therefore it can handle more weight by being balanced radially around it's axis. This is a fundamentally stronger and more stable stucture because the shaft and the generator are larger and integrated.
2.) the design revolves around maglev, so the added weight doesn't necessarily add exorbitant friction. This alone will increase effeciency. However, the maglev's main benefit will be floating the massive drum of wind foils in a near frictionless environment.
To me, the structure looks like the rotary drum of a fan blower that dries wet floors after shampooings or whatnot. However, it seems like it's the size of a building and placed on it's end. Maybe they should put one in Chicago on an empty lot (after all, it is the Windy City - and that's no joke if you've ever been there, the city acts like a wind funnel). It would be quite a tourist attraction and would actually slow wind speeds if it extracted enough energy.
I would really like to see if this thing becomes real and follow it's average yearly power output. I also wonder if these could be built on platforms offshore. I live in Michigan and our best wind is over the eastern half of Lake Michigan.