Having too much time on my hands I did a bit of a search on this thing.
Yeah, we pretty much picked it I'd say.
Characteristics of a Unit
Installed Power: 4.1 kW
Height: 10m
Width: 8m
Weight: 4 Tons
4 effing tons to produce 4.1 Kw? Other reports I found said 3.5 but my point is, how much resources and energy are tied up in producing something that weighs 4 tons? More than this crock of ship has a hope in hell of offsetting I'd say.
It gets better though......
The company plans to start producing wind trees on a large scale in 2017. But their high price – 49,500 Euro per unit – earmarks them initially for the private market. “At the moment, we are only selling the Aeroleaf to big companies and public authorities. Around 35 French, Swiss and German district councils have already placed orders for the end of the year, reveals Hélène Bédon-Rouanet, spokewoman of NewWind. We also have a lot of requests in Belgium. But we are waiting to obtain all the certifications before offering the Aeroleaf, at a more affordable price, to private individuals.â€
So it's going to be well over 50K euro installed for one of these things and as predicted, Big business and gubbermint entities are the customers.
Almost 2M euros in advance orders before they start. That seems like a reasonable sort of business kickoff doesn't it? Wait till they start actually marketing the things and get even more press and social media coverage!
Now lets see, 50K euro divided by 4 Kw a day (Yeah, I know, not a chance) times say 1 euro a day power cost offset divided by 365 days a year = Not the faintest hope in hell this thing will ever come near being anything bar a Joke or having a chance at ROI.
No doubt it will let officials, CEO's and directors continue the facade that they are environmentally concerned and doing something for the planet to offset their other convenient abuse thereof.
One wonders what the " more affordable price to private individuals" is going to be? It would have to be a 10th of the "Big company" version to be near worthwhile on an economic basis and that's if you think the thing isn't an eyesore.
Personally I rather have conventional solar panels than one of these things. They will last infinitely longer for a start.
Time for me to start marketing my water flow generator. installed in your plumbing, it generates power every time you turn on the tap. You could make enough power to keep your wristwatch powered for a whole year in just one day!
I could let these go for the bargain based price of $5000 each as the mechanical flow meters I'd buy from china and re label would only cost me a few bucks each. I'll do a commercial version that can be installed in the mains of places like shopping centers, high rise and factorys that can generate up to 2 Kwh a day and make them available for only $40K each.
Ok, so my business plan will be:
Buy a box of the flowmeters for $100
Print stickers on my computer
Take pics and design a flashy PDF and print some glossy handouts.
Draw up some wizz bang graphics and pull some figures out my nether regions on how much co2 the things will save and how many ( dolls) houses they can power or (RC) cars they can recharge.
Create mailing list of the usual green suckers, Big biz and gubbermint entities and of course all the save the planet green based web sites.
Take orders, send out product, bank money, buy new luxury home, car and plan business trips to popular tourist destinations to promote product and save the world.
Took a while but I finally got smart and made some serious moolah. :0)