Lucien Gambarota is an Italian inventor who came up with a way to harness wind power without the need for large, expensive turbines.  His MotorWind turbines consist of several 25 cm plastic fans linked together to generate power from as little as 2 m/s (4.5 mph) winds.  This CNN article has more info.  Similar to my idea for small scale electrical generation.  (via Neatorama) #science