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Tom Potts wrote: > 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'. So if the wings drive the windward side of the conveyor in a given direction, what happens with the wings on the leeward side? Do you have to have some mechanism to have the wing turn around so it drives the leeward side in the other direction? There's also the possible problem that the leeward blades would always be running in "spoilt" air and causing drag. Air at ground level is fairly turbulent anyhow -- you'd really want to mount such a structure at least ten metres in the air to get reasonable extraction of energy from the wind. Same problem with rooftop sites -- and if you could put, say, a 5m x 1m "belt" on a roof, it's probably going to be about as effective as a 1.25m radius propeller, which would be far less problematic to mount, I'd have thought. James -- 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