On 4 Jan, 21:28, wrote:
Jules wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:47:32 -0800, meow2222 wrote:
He's close... tree movement will never drive a dynamo though. You need
a mini gen that will produce useful power at under 100rpm, ie a
stepper motor from a 5.25" floppy drive or a printer.

The power source seems analogous to a tidal plant - strong, but
intermittant, slow and variable over a short range of movement. Can't help
thinking that there must be inherent inefficencies in involving the tree
though, and there must be far better ways of capturing the wind energy
that's moving the tree in the first place...

In terms of energy efficiency it makes no attempt to be efficient -
but thats not the issue. Its the classic mistake of alt energy types
to concentrate on energy efficiency when the real deal is actually
financial efficiency.

The treegen has zero visibility, unlike all other wind collectors. It
uses almost zero materials, needs no support structure, there are
masses of natural collectors already in place, and it costs a few
pence. How can you beat that?

Oh, one last plus point. Due to the weight on string mechanism its
possible *to connect a whole handful of trees up to one generator,
which incidenitally will then run more or less continuously.

NT

Naturally growing windmill , like it a lot.

Adam