Insane New Wind Power Idea, Without the Blades

For some crazy reason wind power is a hard sell. Stories of noise induced issues abound, though none appear to have any scientific basis. And many people think they are ugly. It's subjective, granted, but I think they look beautiful. A triumph of human engineering in a sustainable equilibrium with nature.

Either way, some people are always pushing boundaries with new ideas, like these cats:

These are basically long stalks, like grass in the wind they will sway about naturally. Through some pretty rad sounding tech, they will also apparently produce roughly equivalent power to a turbine. I'm super-duper skeptical of that claim, and its also likely they will cost something insane given they are made of carbon-fibre. But hey, if Abu Dhabi wants to channel some of that oil money into insane renewables I'm not gonna be the one to tell them to stop.

Another neat feature/idea:

The top of each tall stalk has an LED lamp that glows when the wind is blowing -- more intensely during strong winds and not all when the air is still. The firm anticipates that the stalks will behave naturally, vibrating and fluttering in the air.

“Windstalk is completely silent, and the image associated with them is something we're already used to seeing in a field of wheat or reeds in a marsh. Our hope is that people living close to them will like to walk through the field -- especially at night -- under their own, private sky of swarming stars,” said Núñez-Ameni.

Read more at discovery.com (including a pic of it at night).