I don’t have near enough time to do justice to this idea. I’ll just post it in very abbreviated form and leave the rest to your imagination.
The chain-like structure that protrudes from the inner perimeter of the rim of the spoked wheel is essentially just a bunch of rollers whose axes are parallel to the rotor axis of rotation. The fact that these engaging mechanisms are rollers (rather than just fixed pegs) permits very efficient transfer of mechanical power from the rotor blade to the chain drive.
Variations
The high speed generator shaft can be attached to a second smaller (aerodynamic) rotor. This permits more efficient conversion of energy flowing through the axial region of the rotor disk, and eliminates the big fat twisted small-radius section of the larger rotor blade.
The chain drive may be replaced with a high-speed rotating shaft whose axis of rotation is coaxial with the longitudinal dimension of the blade (coaxial with the blade spar). The rotating shaft goes down the center of the blade just like the chain drive. A tire at the blade tip engages a ring that looks like a giant washer and that protrudes from the inside of the rim of the spoked wheel. The tire drives the high-speed shaft that goes through the center of the blade. Assuming a 2 bladed turbine, the two shafts will be counterrotating. One of these shafts drives the generator rotor and the other drives the “stator” in the opposite direction. In this design, the generator rotates with the blades and slip rings will be required to transmitt power from the rotating generator.
Yet another variation has the chain drive or high-speed rotating shaft running longitudinally inside the spar of an H-Rotor Darrieus. In this embodiment, either the generator can rotate with the blades and transmitt its power out through slip rings, or else another sprocket near the tower protrudes from the spar and drives a rotating ring which in turn drives a generator that is fixed with respect to the turbine foundation.
