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by norome 387 days ago
Would be great if someone could build wind turbines to look like the windmills of old
3 comments

Those are really short and therefore much less efficient. Wind power scales as a cube with speed, and speed scales as a power with height. A little more height can make a big difference.
What type of windmill of old? They look like a scaled up Jacobs wind system from the 1920s. No surprise, Jacob's wind got a lot of things right back then.

If you mean the old water pumps used in the American west (they are still made today!), those are good for water pumping because they produce high torque in low winds, but they make less horsepower and that is what we care about.

If you mean the Dutch style windmills/houses, we could do that, but the big house blocks a lot of wind and so it is not efficient.

I can't think of any other style of old windmill. However if you can the answer to your question is likely because that style is much less efficient.

Why? Presumably we’re trying to optimise on generated power?
It's not a viable proposition, I agree, but one thing it would get around is NIMBYs in the UK who seem to love vintage windmills, but not wind turbines!