Quoted By:
Can't patent it:
1 - you have no design for moving the blades to face the wind as it turns
2 - It's already been done, by people who figured out #1
Not to mention you lose any component of the wind that is in the direction of the turbine's axis. That's why this style turbine typically had the blades mounted vertically. Vertically is limited because wind is generally much stronger with higher altitude, so with long blades the differential is too big and things break.
In any case, the mechanism for turning the blades each revolution (think about it - every revolution each individual blade needs to do a full rotation in the opposite direction, such that it's facing the wind (and optimally, it wouldn't turn at the same rate through the whole revolution, since it's speed relative to the wind changes, and angle of attack is important). This mechanism is what makes this not easy to build or maintain, and less efficient than you'd like.
Also keep in mind the tensile strength of a very long blade, and the "huge ass" amount of power it would need to transfer to the axle. Also take into account that turbulence and changes in the wind do happen locally, so there's a practical limit to how long you'd want it to be... imagine on a kilometer long east-west turbine, what happens if on the west side the prevailing wind is to the south, but on the east side it is opposite, to the north? Cyclonic winds aren't so uncommon. Best case, your turbine doesn't move at all. Worst, your blades twist until failure. Meanwhile, today's typical turbines will happily move themselves into the wind no matter what direction their neighbors are in. If you can solve all these problems, then it would be worth a patent.
If you want to patent anything, maybe go read a book on that thing first and make sure you're not reinventing the wheel :) There are plenty of sources that explain why over hundreds of years almost the entire world has decided on the typical 3 blades on a rotating tower design.
