April Fool's Joke? - Wind turbines suspended 20 Kilometers in the sky?

Super strong, super long tensile structures, connected to anchors on the Moon, `suspend` in the Earth's atmosphere assemblies of wind energy catching devices (like turbines) positioned about 10-20 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The wind is actually an airflow generated by the Earth's rotation. The caught energy is converted to electricity and transmitted to Earth. A flat keel, attached to each assembly of turbines, stabilizes the assembly in the direction of the wind. The entire apparatus is stationary relative to the Moon and rotates around the Earth together with the Moon, according to inventor Michael Pindrik (Baltimore, MD) in U.S. Patent Application 20100084512.

The cost of installation of tensile structures for Luno Geo Wind Mill (S) should probably be comparable to the NASA's announced budget for fiscal year 2009 ($17.6 billion). The diameter (and the thickness) of the carbon nanotube cable needed would be about 6 cm (2.4 inches) to hold its own weight plus 15,000 ton turbines. A more or less `safe` estimate for the cost is $100 billion, thus giving us an estimate for 5,000 turbines. 5,000 turbines with 21 megawatt each supposed to generate enough electricity for 25 million of American homes. The carbon nanotube cable would also provide a means to operate a space elevator.

The use of renewable energy resources continues to be an important factor in satisfying energy demands while substantially reducing environmental impacts. Many conventional renewable recourse energy generation technologies, however, have design limitations, fragility, low benefit-to-cost ratio or inadequate expansion capacity. Accordingly, there is a need for a new approach in wind turbines technologies that addresses some of these problems. The presented disclosure addresses such new approach in wind turbines technologies.

A few similar system configurations may exist that would provide the desired goal of generating electricity by harnessing the mechanical energy of the airflow caused by the Earth's rotation. The satellite rotating around the Earth may be: a) a man-built substantially massive space object rotating around the earth in an orbit similar to the orbits of currently existing satellites relatively close to the Earth; or b) an asteroid `maneuvered` to rotate around the earth in an orbit similar to the orbits of currently existing satellites relatively close to the Earth; or c) a man-built substantially massive space object positioned less than 10,000 kilometers from the zero gravity point between the earth and the moon; or d) an asteroid `maneuvered` to the zero gravity region between the Earth and the Moon. e) the Earth's Moon itself.

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net