There’s few areas where it is easier to squander money than Wind Power. It’s best to study the potential before you invest, there are countless places to learn about ‘your’ opportunity and you’ll find every sort of promise.
As with most things, isn’t it best to consult the man who has his hands all over it? Two of the people I have followed for years are Hugh Piggott and Dan Fink. I’ll place some links below to help you get started in reality. Since they have considerable mastery of the topic, I’ll be brief and warn you of a few pitfalls.
Hugh and Dan can give you a lot of examples as to why you shouldn’t be impressed with peak power potential of the hardware. We should also understand that the assessment of potential at any given location right down to plus or minus a few feet can be very important. Your return on investment can have everything to do with initial cost and your ability to maintain the equipment, this gets into all kinds of considerations as per the basic design, and only the foolish ‘call the man’ to install it for them BEFORE they get the basic knowledge under their belt. If you do it right, you may find a nice reward. If you invest before you educate yourself, you may have a better opportunity to benefit by taking your money to Vegas and playing your favorite game in the Casino.
I like Dan’s page here as an intro primer to wind Power. http://www.otherpower.com/windbasics1.html
Hugh has significant experience, and there is much to learn here as well. Question: who has more ‘hands on’ experience than Hugh? Answer: I don’t know.
Wind power for the off-grider or small scale wind power guy can pay, and in areas off grid where solar falls off to near nothing part of the year, this form of AE might supplement your power requirements, and reduce the number of hours you’ll run your generator.
Now let’s talk about Commercial wind power. Who do you find investing in wind power? Who are the power experts?
The power utility folks >are< the experts, some of them do exhaustive studies for five years or more before they decide on where to invest, they take a lot of things into consideration, existing emission laws, and cost of every kind including maintenance. We don’t see power companies investing in wind power… why is that? The answer…. “it likely doesn’t provide a return on investment”. You see, that’s the way you keep a company from going bankrupt, they only stay in the game if they make a profit. Of course those who dispense propaganda will make them the villains, how dare them NOT invest in Alternative power! Fact is, Governments are not all that different from Companies in some respects, if they don’t make a profit, they don’t survive either.
Note Dan F’s overview and his mention of ‘SCAMS’. His comments regard the commercial wind turbines marketed to individuals, but the large commercial wind turbines are ‘marketed’ to the most inept people of all.. Our Politicians, many if not most are easy prey.
Here in the State of Washington our Governor proudly announced that she had awarded a $5 million dollar Grant to an entity who will set up and operate a large commercial wind turbine on the West Coast of Washington State. Our Governor is also responsible for several large wind farms installed in Washington that had a lot of opposition, she over ruled and these farms are now reality. If these wind turbine projects are plauged with problems and never return a dime on the investment, who will be responsible? Well, we know what politicians do, they all point fingers elsewhere, seldom is any failure or poor decision theirs. IF we look at subsidies realistically, it is nothing other than a method to FORCE you to carry the investment and responsibility, (as the Citizen Taxpayer). It’s little different than other scams as the PIGs (animal farm) placed every kind of burden on the backs of other animals.
A quick mention of what the German Government did. Some in their Government decided to offer a near 100% subsidy for Solar Panel and related equipment purchase. Their subsidy created a rather huge demand for panels and naturally the price of panels rose with the sharp demand. The overall effect? People in other countries with far more solar potential found themselves unable to realize a payback on the same equipment because the German subsidy had driven the price of the equipment unrealistically high. If you look at the mechanics, this means that the German Government forced the German People (all of them) to invest at the highest price in recent times. You can buy the same panels for less than half the price now, and this slide started right after the German demand tapered off.
With the above example, We note… a lot of people are giddy about wind power, there are plenty of investors, and why is it that Government doesn’t allow we citizens to invest in Wind Turbines as we choose? How different Politician’s behavior would be if we could hang them in the public square if the investments they force us to make fail.
Here in Washington State Our Governor and Senators, are infatuated with Wind Mills, it’s a very fashionable thing you know; an it’s hard to find Women who ignore fashion…… especially if it’s what they think will get them re-elected. But…. we once had a Democrat Governor with a clear mind, and a passion for knowing the truth. It’s worth your effort to review some of Governor Dixi Lee Ray’s quotes to realize how long we’ve been dealing with this insanity, and just how well she understood reality. Beyond her deeds, we see that her best friend was a Dog, who needs further proof of her intelligence?
Quoting Dixie:
“We need to ask our policy makers and those we elect to office who are supposed to make decisions to give us the evidence of the facts that are behind the decisions that we make. We should be skeptical”.
Let us rejoice! yes, Dixie was a Scientist, and She understood the Value of being a skeptic, it is true that the Propagandists have put a lot of resorces into demonizing skeptics. Of course Dixie understood that gullible people seldom make good decisions, nor do they cast the wise vote.
When I think Wind Mills, I naturally think of Don Quijote…
With all said, I own a wind turbine, it’s my investment good or bad, and you don’t pay for my mistake, as I didn’t ask for any subsidy.
Here’s a must read book to consider:
http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Farm-Scam-Independent-Minds/dp/1905299834 read the reviews, and the Author’s background.
To study Wind Turbines further, make the time to study the WEB, Google the terms “Wind Turbine Scam” and “wind Turbine Hoax”. If you think all the posts you find are about spoiling the fun, then we certainly can’t call you skeptical can we?
“I loved you Dixie”, it really was nice to have a Governor who was Stateswoman instead of a Politician. She could have cared less about politics or her own re-election. How disappointed she’d be in the leadership here today, likely just as disappointed as the Democratic party was in her….
All the best,
George B.
Here’s a comment that arrived in my email from Germany this AM:
I think from previous messages you know I was trying to get my
electrician to put some panels on my roof. He said my house isn’t
pointed the right direction and I have too many, and my neighbors have
too many, trees. He’s right on all counts. The only part of my roof I
could get anything out of photovoltaic cells faces east and that’s where
all my, and my neighbors’, big trees are. I have nothing facing south,
which would be optimal BUT I have another neighbor with big trees on
that side. Oddly, they all might cut their trees down some day, as they
are all enormous and many are afraid they’ll end up with an unwanted
skylight during the next storm. But they are all waiting, so no help to
me.
Now for the other part of the above story about the price of panels
going up. Indeed, there have been several articles about the price of
panels going up AND the end of the “subsidy” to have them installed (or
effectively the end as they will drop the subsidy down about half on 01
Jan). The other part is that ALL the power companies sent out messages
that the price of power is going up 17%….because there is sooo much
expensive solar power out there? WTF? The price of power is going up
because solar is expensive and they, as you say, “forced” the
investment, so now ALL of us pay, twice (because the govt is still
paying off the cost of the panel subsidy).
Very strange, these sheep.
kreg
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George Comment: I’m not sure we can sum up the total cost to Germany and others when it comes to this subsidy, example…we know it impacted some Ozzie who was lives off grid and has excellent solar potential (unlike Germany) and had to buy panels at the higher prices created by the german subsidy, but there may be other things we are not aware of, who services the german solar installs? Will all Germans pay for the maintenance work over the next 30 years, or will the home owner carry the expense? What kind of survillance system was put in to assure that all this expensive equipment is functioning and helping to repay the debt? Does the German Government have the authority to enter homes to repair equipment out of service? Perhaps this is all well thought out, and all of the equipment is mounted outside for easy access and inspection.
Distributed power generation in the hands of enthusiasts is one thing, in the hands of the general public, well… we might expect a lot of service calls. Your comment about paying twice? It may be three times or more, and it may have an affect the value of the currency you use for all I know. Of course that currency issue is of no concern to people who have no savings.
George B.
Where I want to build in west Texas the only thing that doesn’t have to be piped or trucked in is sunshine. So I plan to have a few solar panels with battery bank and diesel back up, curse the EPA for making listeroids so expensive, but am thinking of a couple of small wind generators just to fill in when the wind blows. As nothing is much over 6′ high where I want to build I figure 20′ height would be enough or 30′ at highest. What doesn’t the gov in this country subsidize one way or another.
Charles, you ask….”what don’t they subsidize?” Common sense…..