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Windmills for electricity
Art mentioned in another thread about the windmills poping up in his neighborhood. I've been quite fascinated by them since we have a son involved in all this who keeps me up to speed on their development. The ones he works with are shipped in three 70 ft. tower sections topped by a headhouse holding a a three blade prop with composite blades ninety ft. long. I can't remember the KW rating. Anyhow the group he works with has enough of them sold that they must produce two complete windmills every three working days. This same son is also involved somewhat in the ethanol production industry, so I get a lot of tech. data from him that is sometimes beyond my comprehension. I don't know if we are building windmills fast enough and putting up ethanol plants fast enough to heep ahead of the demand growth or not. I do find the windmills fascinating in that we are harnessing a free source of power, but we may tire of looking at them Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
I have no idea if I'm correct on this or not, but I'm sure the USA is either the largest or next to the top in energy consumption. Even in my somewhat remote part of the country compared to the east and west coasts the new home, business, entertainment business seems to be going at warp speed. It is hard to find a house with one vehicle, most have two or more plus a recreational unit,(boat, RV, Jet ski, etc.) all of these being energy consumers. We as a nation don't seem to want to conserve, (me included). I listen to the son I spoke of and wonder if all the stuff he is involved in is going to keep up with our wants for more energy. Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
Kleinchris; I get your point. yes owning a tractor or other equipment even just a chainsaw makes a statement that you want to take care of yourself. For the most part we have evolved into a society that could not fare for it's self if the purchased energy sources we are acustomed to became unavailable. We still raise a bit of a garden, know how to, but don't can food in mason jars anymore, I can milk a cow, shoot a rabbit, or butcher a hog or a beef if I had to.
I'm starting to see a stray privately owned windmill here and there but know nothing about their cost or payback period. The ones our son is involved with are high dollar units mostly purchased by energy Co-op's that are set up in groups of maybe fifty or more widnmills. He has told me but again I've forgotten the cost per unit, there must be a reasonable period of cost recovery or the money just wouldn't be going into them. Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
Cutter; I'm hoping not to show mu ignorance here but, I've heard the term "adhoc" a million times. What in the world does it mean? Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
Murf, you bring up a real important point that I hadn't thought of on the power line issue. I've been to a big hydro electric dam and drive past a nuke plant once and a while that is about 15 miles as the crow flies from us. Just to get those big lines over the horizon would be mega millions. I quizzed the son I speak of who is into the windmill thing about the lifespan of them. The basis of his job is to represent a mojor oil company as the service advisor to the power company that owns the windmills. His company has the contract to supervise, supply and monitor all lubrication aspects of those things. Yes they cost millions, so service and maintenence is very high priority. For example they pull an oil sample from the gearcases every month and have it analysed at their lab to check for any impuritys, traces of bearing metal, etc, etc. They change the filters, replace any additives that may be depleted and in 99% of even the oldest units the oil has never been changed, only monitored. According to their monitoring records on the oldest units the lifetime of the generators and gearboxes is almost infinite. I would have to wonder why anyone would back away from a 10% return, (acording to a recent poster) on a commodity that has no storage costs, has no input costs, can't be shut down by strikes, or labor shortages, can't be hoarded or returned for a refund, and has a guranteded endless market. I'll ignore the NYMBY thing, bring on the endless free energy source. Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
Joel; First off please point out to me any statment I made on this thread that the windmills are owned by big oil companies. Second, the website you refer to has a first line that states that the cost to produce wind enegy has dropped by more thn 80% in the past 20 years, surely you find some fault in that too. Third, you must live a miserable life of never stop worring about someone else making more money than you do. that is the drift I get from all your writings. Fourth, My Dad always said, "Never waste your time arguing with someone for who's opinion you have no respect" I think you get my point. Frank.
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Windmills for electricity
Kleinchris;
I don't have any exprience with any wind turbines. My first thoughts about the Northern tool unit are that it seems a bit complicated to me by dealing with multiple voltages that I assume will change automacly. Does it mean your whole house/all needs, would have to be converted to 12 volt plus have a transformer to reduce line power to 12 volt too?
I wouldn't tackle this without talking to at least a couple other people who have bought this unit.
Frank.
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