To me the bottom-line question for all these jet-turbine and similar ideas is: Why? Why do we care if it only takes up 1/2 the space? Are we short on space? No. At least not yet. So the limiting factor then becomes one of cost. Is it cost-effective? If it can be made for the same or lower price than a conventional turbine then it has some merit. But why pay more just to save a little space? OK, there might be some application in limited-space situations like rooftops in cities. But these have been proven to be poor locations for wind turbines anyway - not likely to be productive enough to pay for themselves. So probably no benefit there. But if there were, you could only place so many of these on the roof before they started to shade each other and the output of all of them would decrease.
I am sceptical of their claim of 40% lower cost. There is a lot of material in those shrouds and the blades probably need to be relatively precisely made. I would be very surprised if the retail cost of these was less than a conventional turbine.
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