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Bahrain's 'World Trade Center' buildings connected by wind turbines
Soon, the small island nation of Bahrain may be known for more than having served as the temporary home of Michael Jackson. Its brand new World Trade Center twin towers are connected by three wind turbines that spun for the first time earlier this week. The building is the first in the world to have such a large power-harvesting source integrated into its construction.
The turbines, when fully operational, should provide between 11 and 15% of the power necessary to run the large skyscrapers. Testing will continue for the next few months, but we find it encouraging that construction has come this far: so many "green" buildings with innovative design are nothing more than out-there concepts.
World Architecture News, via Treehugger
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By Desloc at 3:38 PM ON 04/11/08
Working for an environmental consulting organization, it would be great to see this kind of innovation at home in the US. It's not only an incredible idea, but a gorgeous design.
By Traveler at 1:07 PM ON 04/12/08
Love the look. But what about noise and/or vibration?
By Buzz at 9:18 AM ON 04/13/08
'Friend' of mine designed that building. He's pretty chuffed about the whole thing because normally this remains a concept but with some people with too much money.... "who cares about the money, lets just build it"
By Ultra2005 at 2:23 PM ON 04/13/08
vibrations will demolish the bulding between 5 to 10 years. Also the brivrations will soften or crack the foundation of both buildings.
By collective82 at 9:26 PM ON 04/13/08
ultra you must be crazy. you think they wouldnt think of that and use rubber and other materials to compensate for it to reduce those issues?
By heit1 at 9:33 AM ON 04/16/08
Lol, ultra is clearly not very smart. They design buildings in heavy earthquake zones all the time built to withstand minor (and some major) vibrations for dozens of years. This isnt even close to that extreme.
By DarthRock at 11:35 AM ON 04/16/08
This is brilliant! The building is really beautiful and with the turbines, also functional. Why is it, we in America have all this knowledge and yet we don’t use them? We’ve lost the tech race. Other nations have no problem using new technology, ergo high speed electric bullet trains, wind turbines for power. Heck, Scotland is beginning to use a ’wave generator’ to harvest the power of the oceans waves to generate power. We in America need to wake up. Our archaic, dogmatic outdated modes of thinking are hurting our country and we are being left behind.
By redconvt at 11:56 AM ON 04/16/08
I agree with Darthrock. We are being left behind and it's mainly because the powers that be don't believe in either science or in evolution. We are talking about the same folks that let the best electric car die out. Hopefully things like that will change this year. Wouldn't it be so cool to see this in all the major cities in the US. Also wind power for your home can be done too.
By mustang at 12:50 PM ON 04/16/08
Actually in some ways, we're not that far behind. For example, here in MN there has been a company that is actively pursuing wave energy technology for some time now and they are finally close to puting it to real world use. This year they are scaling up a large in-ocean system off the coast of Texas.
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Actually in some ways, we're not that far behind. For example, here in MN there has been a company that is activel...More »