December 3, 2007 - 5:35 PM
Gone With The Wind
In my little corner of the world -- which is a small spread at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia -- I'm constantly search for technologies that can make my life easier, cheaper or more productive.
With the winds gusting up to 60 miles an hour today, I resumed my search for information on how I could use wind power to supplant my ecological footprint and lessen my electric bill. The news, alas, is not good.
There are a lot of good windmills on the market today, including some by PacWind that are smaller and more suitable for a home or small business. Unfortunately, my place sits in a valley with steady state winds of only 5-6 miles per hour. At that rate, a windmill would only produce about 90 kilowatt hours of energy against an average of 1200 kilowatt hours for a household. At that rate, I would be long dead before recovering my investment.
I've already ruled out solar as a viable replacement -- too expensive, and still too inefficient.
Moving on to geothermal. Will report progress.
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