Probably not as effective since it would miss lower wind speeds
It might resist vibration as an upside but that upside should be cancelled out by its fragility and the extra load it inherently puts on its bearings
But cheaper than metal refinery? Yes
You focusing on the blades? Original post just covered overall materials, hence I imagined a fan entirely of stone as your reply to be a joke.
Stone blades? Maybe, but probably not. Can't think of any easy way to shape stone into uniform blades, let alone ones that have all the helpful properties (flex, etc) needed.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. All stone would indeed be a joke. I had been arguing with the guy about fan blades for a while, starting with him saying all wind turbines must have blades made of fiberglass or they won't work. I said the fanblades should be made of metal on small ones.
I figured there's no way he's saying a dynamo costs more energy to produce than it can ever generate, and there's no way he's saying adding a mount makes it cost more to produce than it can ever generate, so he must be saying metal fanblades have the same cost-to-produce issue as fiberglass.
Stone isn't that hard to shape uniformly, but it won't have all the helpful properties you want, and it will probably need the fan assembly/bearings replaced more often, but if metal fanblades are really too expensive to produce then it still would solve that problem which is just an extreme example to prove bare material cost can't be the problem
Yeah, hard to imagine a cheap little windmill with metal blades (like I'm sure I've seen) costs more than its lifetime energy output would cost. Guessing more to do with the large ones, wasn't sure on that. He did seem to think it applied to even the small battery charging one you mentioned... no idea. In that scenario it's not about cost anyway, or if it is, the right cost to compare to is building power lines to the remote location (you can't say it's the same fixed cost as in a modern home when there's no availability at all)
