a thought: why cant wind turbines be put on all electric towers?

I"m talking about those huges lattice structure power line holders.

these structures ALREADY exist, and if the argument is danger to birds, etc, that danger ALREADY exists.
Why can't we attach wind and solar generators to every one of these towers? the added advantage is that they are already part of the grid, so there's no transportation logistics, the wind turbines/solar collectors can input power directly.

Is there any valid reason why this could NOT be done?

Most decent sized wind turbines weigh quite a bit from what I understand.

You could probably mount something up there if the wires weren't there, but those towers cannot accomodate both.

they could be attached at midlevel.

I think you could figure out a way to put solor or wind onto these towers, but I suspect it would be a pretty costly retrofit.

Also the dynamic load put on the tower would subject it to vibration it wasn't designed to take.
If they were to design from the start for that it would be possible.
But its good thinking, keep it up.

but just wired up into the lines to add more power, and new lines run to accommodate more power. the towers are there already for supporting the lines.

Solar panels generate DC current. That crrent needs to go thru an inverter to cenvert it to AC which then would need to go through a transformer to boost its voltage to match that in the lines. Then their is the problem of phase shifting. The phase of the inverted current would need to be shifted to match the phase of the AC in the power grid.

Wind generated is already AC but it would have to be transformed to the higher voltages in the grid. A bigger problem than that arises from the fact that a windmill must be able to rotate 360 degrees to always face the wind. The only possible place to do that is above the tower adding loading stresses that would probably be too much for the tower to support.

So long as they were made so the wind can blow freely past the array.
I suppose a high tension tower could sport a sizable array.

Why? Well because they were never designed to hold a windmill and to go back and retro fit would be terribly expensive and dangerous since it carries a high voltage current. Remember these lines are long distance line which carry high voltage and low current. This is done because the lower the current and higher the voltage, the less waste in electricity.

Wind turbines need to be built in areas with fairly constant, high wind speeds. Just because the area you live in gets a few windy days each week doesn't mean it will be an efficient place to install commercial-grade wind turbines. There's a reason why wind farms are build almost entirely in the Great Plains and offshore, where wind speeds are the highest.

I think that in certain areas, it might be feasible that new towers would be built as hybrids of sorts. Nice thinking outside the box.

First, those towers aren't designed to take the stress of the an extra load. Second, not all of these towers are in areas that has enough wind flow. Third, many of these towers are in the wrong place for bird migration and bird flight paths, thus they could become bird blenders. We haven't had a bird blender since Altamont in CA, a lot about placement vis-a-vis birds has been learned, and there are just certain locations that aren't good at all.

There are other alternatives however. With only minor modifications you could have a decent solar array on those towers. Or you could be up a mini turbine on them(hey, every little bit helps). There's even a new tech out known as windbelts that could also be put on those towers <http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224763.html?series=37>