Do you support energy generation via wind turbines?

Yes, we had a question about this like a week ago. And Again my answer is: My house is running completely on wind power.

(Awesome video, though)

I purchased wind power in the past, and probably will in the future when I’m paying that bill again. The only drawback is that the windmills kill birds, especially when placed on mountain/hill ridgetops.

I thought bird mortality by wind turbine was a myth at least mortality in greater numbers than other hazards to birds like airplanes, cars, pesticides, etc. I know that the technology has improved over early models to be more friendly to the environment especially to birds.

@tek, yeah, I don’t have facts on that, just what I’ve heard. Maybe someone else knows fo’ sho’.

delirium: do you have a turbine on your property or do you opt for wind power from your electric company? If you have a turbine, do you put excess power into the grid? Our city has set things up such that excess power cannot be(for legal reasons) sent to the grid. Something about the power company being part of the city or some such nonsense.

Yes I do.

Opt for wind power from our electric company.
I do wish that I had one on my property, but If we could afford that, we’d probably make a bigger attempt to go geothermal.

Great video. Yeah, i think wind energy is great. All our power is Hydro electric here, so I don’t see turbines around, but I wouldn’t mind at all. I kinda like the look of them. I saw some large generating fields in Sweden when I was there and thought it was great. They had them set up in farmer’s fields so they were adding clean power generation to already productive land. Fantastic stuff, IMO.

I get wind power from my electric co., also.

no

I am very much in support of renewable energies.

I’m working with a company that will begin installing solar panels, on homes later this year, to be rented to the homeowners. This will eliminate the large upfront costs and the ongoing maintenance issues, for people who can’t afford the initial cost.

When wind energy first began expanding the Wind Turbines were smaller and less productive. The blades were faster and more birds were killed. Research on birds migratory patterns is done now when considering placement. Birds, bats and other wildlife are still at risk though it’s much less of an impact.

wikipedia
UK, where there are several hundred turbines, about one bird is killed per turbine per year; 10 million per year are killed by cars alone. In the United States, turbines kill 70,000 birds per year, compared to 57 million killed by cars and 97.5 million killed by collisions with plate glass.

Wind is not as reliable and best production is often during non peak times. Methods for saving the energy for peak times are being worked on though.
Wind-to-Hydrogen Project
Another interesting Wind Power story, from Hull, Massachusetts
link

delirium: Can you point me to the question from last week on this subject?

@ironhiway The best method I’ve seen for storing energy for peak use was in Switzerland, where they had turbines in dams that could be run to pump water back up during non-peak. Basically the reservoir was a huge battery. The dam I saw was near the headwaters of the river, so had minimal impacts on the river system.

Definitely, but only as part of the renewable energy package. Everything comes with it’s price, but the impact of wind turbines is definitely less than that of coal, which fuels half the homes in the the US. Science Friday on 6/29 talks about it http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200906262 and mentioned that wind could power the entire world, but also that diversification is important (in case all the wind stops?). In fact, putting that many turbines up could change the wind patterns, they say, and slow global warming a bit. Also worth note, only about 1% of solar energy that hits the earth is converted to wind (kinetic energy), so solar panels should be a bigger part of the equation. Each house with adequate sun could be powered by it’s own solar array at least part of the year, but you won’t see many houses putting up their own turbines.

Two ole retired guys here living on Social Security and Savings and we invested in two of Southwest Windpower’s Skystream 3.7 wind turbines. What a DISASTER and waste of money. We have two ungodly expensive yard ornaments that save us about 7% on our electric bill. The Company promoted and advertised ONE of them to save the average household from 30–80% on their energy needs. If you’d like to read our story, although a bit long and a bit boring, go to: http://b-d.ranch.tripod.com/twoskystream37installationsgonewrong/