Residential Wind Power

I've been in love with the idea of generating your own electricity for many years. The problem of course is the fact that it isn't easy. The one idea I keep coming back to is wind power. It is beautifully simple and elegant, yet is still difficult to make work.

The one concept I can't understand is why there is no gearing involved with today's smaller windmills. Wind power created high torque, low speed work power, and you need high speeds to get a useful current out of a generator. Why not use some creative low friction gearing to get the high torque, low speed movement, into a high speed low torque movement. You will lose some power to friction, but I have always thought it is a practical solution to the problem of low wind speeds.

I can imagine a length of helix shaped lightweight plastic moving in low wind speeds, moving some light plastic gears that gear up the speed of the rotating magnet in the copper coil. It may not work at all, but the small home made generators I see that can be homemade require higher speeds to generate useful current. I really want to try this one day, but I have to build a simple generator first. Sadly I never seem to take the time to do it, a real regret of mine.