The organic model for large structures that resist the destructive force of wind, while harvesting renewable energy (in this case solar energy) are trees.
Constructed from small efficiently produced units, cells, the whole structure arranged to bend instead of break.
Wind generator tensegrity structures, like communications towers, could use the same design principles.
Very light tower units, the cells, of welded steel. Mass produced, then assembled into huge wind harvesting structures, 50 megawatt scale structures.
intead of blades as on the current large wind designs. Roller furling sail wing "blades". That automatically adjust their surface area to the wind speed.
The sail wing "blades" deployed within the steel tower units. Curved sides on the tower units to form the blade shape.
The current size of the largest wind machine blades are running up against the "King Kong" engineering limit. The bigger you go the heavier you go by an exponential factor. So King kong would crush himself.
This hollow frame design is the answer. The amount of wind load on each part is controllable with the roller furling sails.
Wind load goes up with the cube of wind speed, just like the weight of king kong goes up with the cube of height. Relieve the wind load by making it controllable and the structure can be much lighter, alleviating the load due to weight and centripital acceleration.
Crazy Jules Vernism, hehey.
Good news, mass wind machine production in China. 3 and 5 mega watt!
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/amscwindtec_to_.html#comment-63427104
Bigger is better and cheaper per kwh.
But consider this? A small 3 kw wind machine powering every suitable home or business location in the US would be a good thing too.
Featuring: Really flexible blades about 10 feet long that bend instead of break. And simple grid synchonized electronics.
All molded plastic stamped out on an assembley line. For 300 bucks per copy. those could be installed and grid connected for 1500 dollars per kw of real capacity. No capacity factor BS involved.
But these huge machines? I think breakthroughs to under 1000 dollars per kw could be attained with large scale mass production and installation.
It is going to be important for the government to set aside conservation land in the high wind areas of the prairie states that can be leased at reasonable prices to wind power producers.
Otherwise land speculation will build a new OPEC, with foreign government corporations taking major stakes. Chinese government owned corporations are already trying to monopolize Canadian tar sands oil.