DAWN

Page 44

Development

This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors By Elissaveta M. Brandon

RENEWABLE ENERGY COULD POWER the world within the next 30 years, and wind power is one of the cheapest, most efficient ways to get there. Except 80% of the world’s offshore wind blows in deep waters, where it’s difficult to build wind farms. A new design for a radically different kind of wind turbine could begin to change that. Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems is developing a floating, multi-turbine technology for wind farms that could generate five times the annual energy of the world’s largest, single wind turbine. This increased efficiency is due to an innovative design that reinvents the way wind farms look and perform. Unlike traditional wind turbines, which consist 44

September-October 2021

of one pole and three gargantuan blades, the so-called Wind Catcher is articulated in a square grid with over 100 small blades. At 1,000 feet high, the system is over three times as ttall a as an average wind turbine, and it stands on a floating platform that’s anchored to the ocean floor. The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds, the Wind Catcher could revolutionize the way we harness wind power. “Traditional wind farms are based on the old Dutch windmills,” says Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems. These wind farms work well on land, but “why is it that when you have something that works on land, you should do the same thing on water?” Offshore wind farms have been in vogue; 162 of them are already up and running, with 26 more to come, mostly in China and the U.K. The problem is that each turbine has to be driven into the seabed, so it can’t be installed in waters deeper than 200 DAWN

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The History of Congo's Leopard Men Society that Inspired Marvel's Black Panther

3min
pages 112-114

Netfl ix and Disney Have a Major Disadvantage in Africa’s Streaming Wars

2min
page 108

Agoodjie Warriors: The Black Women Amazons that once Protected Benin

3min
pages 110-111

LIN CROWLEY FINE ART

2min
page 109

Meet the Book-Obsessed Entrepreneur

2min
page 101

How Digital Beauty Filters Perpetuate Colorism

12min
pages 102-105

World-Famous Ghanaian Artist Will Be First to Have Artwork Featured in Outer Space

2min
page 100

Tracking the Future of Tennis

3min
pages 98-99

Undefeated: First Black Girl Duo Wins International Debate Competition at Harvard

1min
page 97

Barack Obama to Join NBA Africa as Strategic Partner

1min
page 96

African Languages to get More Bespoke

6min
pages 86-88

The Promise of the African Genome Project

5min
pages 94-95

A $2 Billion Fintech Startup has Become Africa’s Fastest Unicorn

2min
page 82

Covid-19 is Changing the way African Countries are Collaborating with Each Other

3min
pages 92-93

Alphabet’s Project Taara Laser Tech Beamed 700TB of Data Across Nearly 5km

2min
page 83

Welcome to the Age of Wireless Electricity

7min
pages 89-91

Ethiopia to Build Local Rival to Facebook

2min
page 84

3 Takeaways from Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Teaming up to Fund Women’s and Girls’ Causes

3min
pages 80-81

IMF OKs Big Increase in Funds to Alleviate Pandemic Impact

7min
pages 77-79

A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory

2min
page 76

Kenya Hasn’t Figured Out How to Put its Local Founders First

5min
pages 74-75

African Stock Exchange/Bourse

2min
pages 72-73

Remittance to Africa Projected to Decrease

4min
pages 68-69

Conferment of Sierra Leonea Citizenship

1min
pages 70-71

West African Regional Bloc Adopts New Plan to Launch Eco Single Currency in 2027

1min
page 67

Ghana, Hub for Doing Business

4min
pages 63-65

The UK has Committed to Making Africa’s Landmark Trade Agreement Successful

2min
page 66

Lab-grown Coff ee Cuts Out the Beans and Deforestation (and the farmers)

3min
pages 52-53

Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine for HIV is Starting Human Trials

4min
pages 58-59

Pfi zer and BioNTech in Agreement to Manufacture COVID Vaccine for Distribution in Africa

2min
page 56

Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) Fill Vaccine Information Gaps

1min
page 57

Novavax’s Eff ort to Vaccinate the World, From

5min
pages 54-55

Madagascar is Suff ering from a Climate Change Famine

2min
pages 50-51

This Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy than its Competitors

4min
pages 44-45

Economist Magazine calls for Georgieva to Quit IMF over World Bank Data Scandal

2min
page 33

7 Business Models that will Rule the Next Decade

6min
pages 26-27

Why You Want to be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven

4min
pages 28-29

Elon Musk’s new Satellites Could Sneak Internet Past the Taliban

4min
pages 46-47

IPCC Scientists Still Haven’t Cracked Africa’s Biggest Climate Mystery

3min
pages 48-49

Empowering African Women Entrepreneurs

4min
pages 34-35

The Skin Lightening Business is Booming in Kenya—Though No One will Admit it

6min
pages 30-32

7 Easy Ways to Use PowerPoint Templates to Power Your Content Marketing Campaign

11min
pages 16-20

A Bank at Every Corner Store

10min
pages 21-24

21-Year Old Becomes Ghana’s Youngest Female Commercial Pilot

1min
page 25

Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon'

3min
pages 8-10

Linktree Partners with PayPal to Allow Users Globally to Accept Direct Payments

1min
page 12

Amazon Inaugurates its First Logistics Centre in Egypt

1min
page 13

Publisher's Message

4min
pages 4-7

Kenyans Lead the World in Peer to Peer Crypto Trade

2min
page 11
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