Why Not Use Micro Windmills to Recharge Your Devices ?

Engineers at the University of Texas Arlington, along with an external associate (Smitha Rao),  have developed a windmill so minuscule (1.8 mm at its widest point) that more than ten of them could easily fit on a single grain of rice. These “Micro Windmills”, as they are being called, if they work as promised, will do nothing short of revolutionize the way that we generate energy for small devices and will most certainly take us one step closer to a free (sustainable) energy future.

According to a news post released by the University, though the technology is still in its development phase, a fully working demo of the device clearly shows that that the concept is indeed sound. Furthermore, tests conducted late last year (September 2013) have shown that the device is capable of withstanding some pretty strong artificial wind forced due to the strikingly durable Nickel alloy from which it was built.

 Cheap Renewable Energy

The developers of these “Micro Windmills”, as you would expect, have envisioned many use cases for the technology; one of which being the ability to integrate it into the backs (or cases) that house mobile devices as a way to generate clean, renewable and essentially free energy for them to run on indefinitely.

With a cooperate eye forever fixed towards future, WinMems, the company that provided a lot of the technologies that have facilitated the development of the micro-windmill, see possibilities for its use in the development of micro-robotics technologies, and displays the windmills alongside other similarly tiny devices on both their website and other publicly viewable presentations.

Let us not forget the gigantic impact that technologies such as these, if they are indeed able to make it “off of the drawing-board”, will have on our environment as more and more of the energy that we consume will, in fact, be freely generated from the natural resources that our planet has graciously bestowed upon us.

How excited are you for the future? Tell us in the comment section below.

Source : University of Texas Arlington

Follow me on rwitter : @adrian_gordon