[ExI] Lack of interest

[spike]

> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
... 
> And then there's this guy in California building multi-rotor 
> miniature windmills that can power your house (while the wind blows).
> <http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-05/ten-times-turbine>
> Quote:
...
> BillK

Thanks BillK!  I can think of a variation on his theme.  Instead of having a
tower on one end and a balloon holding the other end aloft, we could have
towers at both ends and a tension cable supporting the turbines.  We could
have vertical rigid supports about every 10 meters with a turbine on either
end, blades about 4 meters (radius)with the turbines on a pivot so they can
always point into the wind.  A 100 meter span would give you twenty turbines
using two towers of about 20 meters height.  We could have a series of
towers spaced at about 100 meters, with a continuous tension cable supported
at each tower, with each span between supporting about 20 turbines.  The sag
in the middle of the cable might necessitate replacing the middle couple of
lower turbines with counterweights, which would end up perhaps 5 meters
above the ground.

It wouldn't be very efficient if the wind direction is parallel to the
tension cable, but it could be arranged such that the cable is perpendicular
to the prevailing wind.

I need to estimate some weights and wind loads in order to estimate the size
of cable needed to support the load, but this sounds like a good
possibility.  Anyone have a good source that can tell me the approximate
weight of a 4 meter radius turbine.

spike