From the mention of coating the wire with plastic, and from the earlier mentions of PVC pipe as a 'collector', I think there's some confusion here between -generation- and the -collection-.
Yes, you use insulators for -generating- elecrostatic energy, but in this case, we're talking about -collecting- electricity from insulators (air) which have -already- been charged.
Thus, bare metallic conductors are what's called for, i.e. a wire.
Also, since y'all are talking about -alternators-, why aren't you just using a transformer to step it up ? Virtually all 60 cps xformers work fine up to 400-800 cps, and many are still quite efficient at 1,000+ cps. Not sure what freq you're expecting from your particular PM alt, but I'd be surprised if it was over 500-1,000 cps...
I'd stay under 600vac in any case. You start getting weird corona effects and insulation breakdown over that, unless you specifically engineer the system for it. Cheap SO or SJO cord will handle 600v no problem.
Around here the bears bite that sort of thing...water lines too...so we usually pick up any kind of cheap grungy used steel pipe, i.e. 1" pipe, and lay it along the ground, running the cable through it.
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