November 2013: New technology - wind towers instead of turbines. A company called SheerWind, Inc. is developing a wind technology that purportedly can generate 25 megawatts without having to build a mega-size turbine. One of its INVELOX towers produces four times the energy of the biggest offshore turbine and six times that of the largest onshore turbine. If the technology gets off the ground, one tower would supply 25,000 US homes at a fraction of the size and cost of traditional wind turbines, says SheerWind.It works in a somewhat analogous way to concentrating solar. It captures, accelerates and concentrates wind in a tower, increasing the velocity of wind. "By concentrating and accelerating wind, we create a similar effect to natural wind corridors used by traditional wind towers. We are able to exceed current industry standards and make wind power costs competitive with fossil fuels," says Cyndi Lesher, Executive VP of Sheerwind, and former CEO of Xcel Energy Company. And this is without subsidies. The technology has been reviewed and validated by experts at major research universities and prototypes have been tested under controlled laboratory conditions.