Comments on: DUTCH TREE WINDMILLS

By: Dillon MacEwan

Dillon MacEwan — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:42:35 +0000

An interesting idea but pretty impracticle – the extra cost in making these maintanence friendly (you access the turbines through the towers, also they genrally house junction boxes down the inside of the tower), and the extra forces on the base due to the cantelevered branches would outweigh any gain from aesthetic novelty.

Also the reason why wind turbines are getting taller is because there is a significantly better yeild of wind at 100m than say 60, and the taller towers allow for longer blades and therefore more efficient turbines.

personally I don\’t understand the problem people have with the way windmills look – been to an open cast coal mine or coal fired power station lately?

By: UPpete

UPpete — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:08:20 +0000

I entered this page with the idea of putting a windmill in the top of a living tree. My spruce needs less top weight and wind resistance so that the house is not threatened. My concept is to prune the very upper branches, and install a small windmill. It would be 2 sets of blades, on both sodes of the tree, for ballance. It would be mounted on a bearing, bearing on a collar around the tree. The upwind set would be smaller but more dense to ballance the weight. Has anyone a design or experience with such? Thanks! Pete

By: r.w.conn

r.w.conn — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:44:46 +0000

they look sinister, almost evil.

By: mirKo

mirKo — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 23:21:16 +0000

NL Architects are very interesting.. and i think that their windmills are a good example of landescape work.. but only for a good organic design.. this mills can't be less intrusive than the traditional ones.. may be i'm wrong.. anyway, i'm curious to know how i feel surrounded by them.. i'd like to see these "dutch windmills" in Sicily too.. here, i see only the conventional ones.. take a look at Pedagaggi SurReality Set or Pedagaggi

By: Martin

Martin — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:17:07 +0000

Dear Magali,
there is no wind mills of such characteristics – the tallest one is on Tokyo (121m); the second in Brittany (France with 111m); and the third in USA. Apart from these exceptions, most of the mills are about 40-50m. Hope that in your discussion you weren’t the one thinking that most mills were about 100m
best
Martin

By: Magali Pettier

Magali Pettier — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 18:58:19 +0000

just was discussing with some friends about the height of wind mills.
By the info provided in your website we can see that, in future, they may grow up to 120metres. In present, most of them are 30-50m. Is there nowadays any wind mill as high as 120m? And, if so, what’s the rate as
compared to the normal ones; and the advantages?

many thanks,
Magali Pettier

By: Daniel Holley

Daniel Holley — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 04:54:01 +0000

…now design several modern dutch windmill tree houses and we’ll have a forest of mini-farm houses! 3-5 turbine trees in various geometries could be both stable and relatively simple for maintenace, as well as suitable for an efficiency studio structure or observatory…(assuming the structure wouldn’t obstruct the wind too much?) Birds can build nests, caterpillars can spin cocoons, why can’t we solve this design problem?
Design in this direction may convince me to become a local market mini-farmer!

By: Nick Simpson

Nick Simpson — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:13:10 +0000

I see your point, but I like it if nothing else because it triggers debate. What matters to most of us here is getting sustainable energy sources on the ground. We need to remember that for the most part, these turbines go up in rural locations – where the local planning committee (I live in the UK I should add) are made up of the local councillors. In these sorts of rural places, a lot of the councillors are not the more educated members of the community, but simply the village idiots with the loudest voices. And if making a turbine look like a tree works, fine by me.

I must admit I like it in a way, quite sculptural as long as there’s not too many branches, although I see Jon’s point about simple elegance with the normal design.

Worth looking at this from Marks Barfield though: http://www.marksbarfield.com/press_releases.php?pressid=14

By: FlatGreg

FlatGreg — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 02:27:05 +0000

I don’t know how much maintenance is required on wind turbines, but any that you’d have to do on this one would be much worse. What if you had to get to the top “branch?”

By: Leopold Mak Ender

Leopold Mak Ender — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:27:10 +0000

I like it and I´ll follow your idea…
Regards

By: Jon B

Jon B — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:48:51 +0000

“beautiful” – I’m not so sure about that – I love organic forms and yet this looks pretty creepy – some evil barren tree. I think the simple elegance of a single wind turbines are more attractive – plus even if this is technical achievable it is likely to have more stability problems that regular turbines.

I like it, but I’d rather not have it on the landscape – it’s too obvious.

Of course that is just my opinion and if it’s a choice of these or no turbines then I’d obviously go for these. I just don’t like man made trees much – natural trees do it so much better.