Vertical Axis Wind Generators

[sluissa]

I know wind generators are a long debated and heated topic, but I've been doing some thinking along with a minor amount of research along with some inspiration from the movie, Waterworld.

I realize a setup like in the movie would be expensive if it would even be possible, but what about something on a slightly smaller scale. something portable which you would be able to haul up the mast when the sail isn't up and take down when you want to sail. It just seems to be a perfect situation for a device such as this, you have a large vertical pole that is already secured and normally has relatively heavy windloads put on it.

This type of generator is called a Darrieus Wind Turbine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrieus_wind_turbine)

It has a few downsides, such as it is not self starting, but that could easily be remedied with a bit of electrical work and a wind sensor(or just the occasional push when you want to start it).

It also has a resonant mode which is when it turns at a certain speed, it will start to shake apart if left at that speed long enough. A simple enough fix would be to wire in a brake to a speed sensor, so that if it reached that dangerous speed it would slow the thing down, or at least give you an alarm so that you could do something about it(manual brakes, or use the generator as a brake.

The good part is that once the turbine is stopped, it shouldn't start again unless started by an automatic mechanism or by your own hand.

Obviously there are down sides. You would be unable to use it while sailing. It would be fairly large and bulky to stow. I'm not even sure what it would sound like, but from what I hear, unlike windmill type blades where the edges spin much faster than the center(causing alot of wind noise) pretty much all of this spins at pretty much the same speed.

Also, if built large enough, say a majority the height of the mast(1/2 to 3/4 maybe?) it would produce alot of power, although i'm uncertain how much, and if it might be too much for the batteries to accept it all.

The whole thing could be sized so not to interfere with any rigging while spinning.

I just want to know why there hasn't been much research into this type of generation since while you're not sailing, you've got a giant pole which tons of wind flows by but nothing is gained from it. Tiny windmill gens just seem to take up more space than they should.

Sorry if any of this sounds unfeasable, as some of you may know, I'm simply a newbie here and I don't even have a boat yet. This just seems to me to be a design that should be explored.