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On Monday 28 May 2007 09:56, James Fidell wrote: > Tom Potts wrote: > > How about vertical blades on a conveyor belt for wind power. Simple > > fabric and wire blades will feather as the wind increases - and as > > they're not radial you can reduce the inherent inefficiencies of a > > propellor. > > Vertical axis wind turbines already exist. Have done for years. Have a > google for Savonius or Darrieus wind turbine. AFAIR they're not > considered particularly efficient and are more difficult to get to work > well than a standard "propeller" turbine. If you want to know more, > Gipe's "Wind Energy Basics" is helpful. No! Not vertical axis! Well one at each end - linear 'conveyor belt'. Think two vertical tubes with a loop of wire at the the top and bottom and vertical 'wings' between the wires that move them horizontally. In all but head/tail on wind the blades will provide some thrust to rotate the 'conveyor'. Potential power output proportional to the length. I reckon a 1m high by 100m along a fence in my top field would have been well into 10's of kilowatts yesterday, possibly 100's at times! As the wings are attached to the wire they would feather automatically so none of this 'oh its too windy to generate wind power'. And they don't have to be as efficient as the linear (and therefore area) cost is quite small - or would be in mass production! You could even just use a single sided conveyor using wings based on penguins wings which are apparently really efficient. Now stick one of those at the top or every roof in the country and spend 1/10th of the cost of building a nuclear power station on refining hydrogen 'stores' - which we might even use to make fuel to congest the roads...... Think OUTSIDE the box - the worst that can happen is you get laughed at: as Bob Monkhouse said:"They laughed at me when I said I was going to be a comedian....they're not laughing now" And we might save the world! Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html