It may not be the answer to global warming, but innovative entrepreneurs here have hit on a way to recycle electricity using wind-generator technology.

A venture company said it has developed a way to generate electricity using exhaust air blown through a vent at a local wood-processing plant.

Windpower Co. officials said tests have shown the system can be used as a source of power.

The company, which also produces small-sized wind generators and other machines, plans to market the new product next year.

``I didn't want to just vent the air through ducts without using it because electricity is used to generate it,'' said Windpower President Motoji Takano who came up with the idea. ``I thought `if we can use the force of the air to re-generate power, it would be recycling a resource.'''

Experiments for practical use of the system were conducted at the Marusan-Mokuzai Co. wood-processing plant in nearby Iwashiro town.

The plant uses massive equipment that vacuums up as much as 6 tons of chips and sawdust while wood is being processed.

The air, or wind force, generated by electricity to suck up the chips vents at a speed of 20 meters per second from a 1-meter-long duct on the roof of the plant.

In September, a windmill was placed in front of the duct to generate electricity.

Those who worked on the experiment were seeking anything but conventional wind power.

They tried several variations of fan blades on the generator. The goal was to get it to make as many revolutions as possible using air from the vent.

After much trial-and-error, they finally came up with the perfect shape-that of traditional Japanese round fans, or uchiwa.

They used aluminum for the pivoting components to reduce the weight. It increased the number of revolutions by 40 percent.

The output of electricity is equivalent to 80 60-watt bulbs, the researchers said.

Now, this electricity is being used to light Marusan-Mokuzai plant's busy warehouse, officials said.

They added that the power-regenerating vent saves the company about 30,000 yen a month.

Marusan-Mokuzai also plans to install four more of the wind-power generators at the plant in hopes of recovering the cost of lighting the entire facility.

``If the generator could continue running for three years, we can recover most of their costs,'' said Katsuma Miura, president of Marusan-Mokuzai. ``What's more, the wind-power-generator system will increase our image as being environmentally friendly.''

Windpower is continuing to try and improve the prototype generator.

Company researchers are now thinking about how they can generate electricity using the weaker wind power that is vented from smaller ducts.

In the future, they hope to generate as much as 300 watts of electricity using wind speed as slow as 7 meters per second.

To realize this goal, they are testing plastic pivot components, which are lighter than aluminium, to get even more revolutions from the new wind generators.

``If we succeed in producing smaller equipment, we will make varieties that can fit into almost all types of ducts used at restaurants and other kinds of buildings,'' Takano said.

According to the company, it has so far received more than 800 business inquiries nationwide about its wind-power-generator system.(IHT/Asahi: December 28,2004)