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Old 10-23-2012, 12:52 AM   #18 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Just think about it in steps. Say you've got your wind-powered vehicle, as in the picture in that linked article. It's stationary, and the wind is blowing - say a 30 mph headwind, just to make things simple. So the wind turbine can capture energy from a 30 mph wind at whatever efficiency, and transfer it to the wheels. This means that the vehicle starts moving at say 1 mph. Drag increases, but so does the apparent wind, which means the speed can keep increasing until the energy captured is just sufficient to overcome the total drag. Seems pretty obvious, and as the article shows, it does work.
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