Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Windmill Electronic Billboard

Make wind power cheaper by doubling as a billboard.
  (+12)(+12)
(+12)
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You know how on long highway trips you often see dozens of windmills spinning beside the road? Why not make the windmills double as advertisement billboards?

First, take a strip of very bright red, green, and blue LEDS (think of one strip of pixels from a Jumbotron), and attach it to one of the propellers on a wind turbine.

Then, a microcontroller takes the speed that the windmill is spinning at the moment, and rapidly changes the LED's to produce what appears to be a full color, circular TV billboard. This would greatly reduce the cost of wind energy because electronic billboards, especially ones that can play video advertisements, pay good monthly dividends.

In addition, because only one strip of LED's is required, the cost is greatly reduced. However, if the display is not bright enough or the windmill does not spin fast enough, then LED's can be added to the other blades to produce a brighter and more consistent picture.

Amall, Jul 28 2008

Halfbakery: Ceiling Fan Display Unit CFDU
This would be the movie theatre version, I guess? [jutta, Jul 28 2008]

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       Great idea (+), though sadly I've never taken a trip where windmills are next to the road. Do the winds change direction on these much? Obviously this only works when facing the blades and the display will have a hole in the middle. Also aren't these too high for easy viewing? In any case you could probably set up timed light shows that would draw tourism.
MisterQED, Jul 28 2008
  

       Alternatively, you could use something similar to the billboards that have vertical triangular sections and rotate between 3 different ads.   

       By having angled slats instead of triangles, you could display 1 scrolling ad instead.
marklar, Jul 28 2008
  

       I think it's a good idea and welcome to the halfbakery. See if you can see this croissant spinning by...+
xandram, Jul 28 2008
  

       These must be fairly small windmills if the rotating rate is fast enough to enable POV.
Texticle, Jul 28 2008
  

       (+) Many small fans and each one is a pixel?   
      
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