I've been sitting on this for a while but...

[christo4_99]

as crazy as it sounds i envisioned a railway that goes around the earth at the equator fitted with electromagnetic windings/stators and fitted with sails or fins which protrude high enough into the atmosphere to cause it to remain stationary while the earth turns(or nearly stationary)thereby producing electricity.remember the earth is spinning at approximately 1000 mph relative to it's atmosphere.the first two problems with this would be material and the possibility of slowing the earths rotaion.the next would be maintenance.tell me what you think but keep in mind i already know it's a crazy idea.btw...if build to accommodate passangers it could be used for transport also.

[Digjam]

As crazy as it sounds , it's no more half-baked than anchoring a cable in space for the proposed
space elevator

[christo4_99]

if it were made to use crosswinds that could solve the rotaional loss problem.

[wattsup]

For such an idea to work, this would slow down earths rotation. Try and get a permit for that. lol

You're better trying to harvest methane from termites.

[l_hester2003]

 I have a half baked contribution to your idea, what if you teathered it to a helium baloon (durigable) with turbine style wind generators mounted inline of the teather, in order to generate power for electromagnetic controls?  Oh well, I still like the idea of an equitorial rail system.