Industrial designer Jonathan Globerson has one of those ideas that makes you go, "Oh, duh! Why don't we all have one yet?" It's so simple, and yet so smart. His Greenerator design is a personal generator that converts wind and sun to power and can do so from a balcony, without messing with the view.

Image: The Greenerator could provide personal solar and wind power to apartment dwellers. Credit: Jonathan Globerson.

By Alyssa Danigelis

Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi. Atelier DNA’s “Windstalk” project came in second in the Land Art Generator competition a contest sponsored by Madsar to identify the best work of art that generates renewable energy from a pool of international submissions.