You don't have to hand carve blades. As far as I understand it wooden propellers were pretty close to optimal, I don't see why turbine blades would be different

You don't have to hand carve blades. As far as I understand it wooden propellers were pretty close to optimal, I don't see why turbine blades would be different The article does mention one turbine optimised to run at lower speeds, which might be the increased reliability mentioned, but no it doesn't explain the power output. I'd tend to put that down to poor writing / and artifact of a previous draft, so I still don't think it's enough to write off the entire article, website and writer. The author's article on small turbines not generating their own embodied energy was what first made me aware of that 'issue'. This is an attempted fix. I agree with you that the best solution is to go bigger, still the proposed options, particularly the pole seem sensible even on a village sized turbine.