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Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine
Sep. 8th, 2019 12:20 pmvia https://ift.tt/2N60HIX
Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine:
zinjanthropusboisei:
Small, local wind turbines provided early electricity for rural farms and homes in the US, prior to rural electrification efforts in the 1930s and 40s that expanded the national grid. One way to bring them back in a more sustainable, efficient (and hopefully socially acceptable) form? Locally crafted, wooden designs: “the company’s mission is to make the countryside – especially farms but also small villages – self-sufficient in terms of power production by designing more beautiful and locally produced wind turbines that people don’t complain about.”
They also discuss integrating small wind and solar, with some beautiful results:
I’m intrigued by wind power, it’s an interesting idea.
In the region I come from, we have a lot of hydro power. And the state has recently started giving out grants hand over fist for solar installations, they want to be Green, they want Alternative Energy… but solar panels require a lot of components that come from mines in conflict areas, they take a lot of power to make, etc.
Hydro isn’t unproblematic, the building of dams devastates fish habitat and the like. But the current problem is that these upstart solar companies are getting all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies, and they’re outcompeting hundred-year-old locally-owned hydro power plants that have been quietly ticking along all this time and who could increase their outputs if only they could afford to, but they’ve been charging reasonably for electricity all this time… and most of them are operating off rivers that were dammed in the 1790s, there’s no new habitat devastation going on and honestly taking the dams down would likely cause more damage than improving them.
(New York State generates more hydropower than any other state east of the Rockies.)
Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine:
zinjanthropusboisei:
Small, local wind turbines provided early electricity for rural farms and homes in the US, prior to rural electrification efforts in the 1930s and 40s that expanded the national grid. One way to bring them back in a more sustainable, efficient (and hopefully socially acceptable) form? Locally crafted, wooden designs: “the company’s mission is to make the countryside – especially farms but also small villages – self-sufficient in terms of power production by designing more beautiful and locally produced wind turbines that people don’t complain about.”
They also discuss integrating small wind and solar, with some beautiful results:
I’m intrigued by wind power, it’s an interesting idea.
In the region I come from, we have a lot of hydro power. And the state has recently started giving out grants hand over fist for solar installations, they want to be Green, they want Alternative Energy… but solar panels require a lot of components that come from mines in conflict areas, they take a lot of power to make, etc.
Hydro isn’t unproblematic, the building of dams devastates fish habitat and the like. But the current problem is that these upstart solar companies are getting all kinds of tax breaks and subsidies, and they’re outcompeting hundred-year-old locally-owned hydro power plants that have been quietly ticking along all this time and who could increase their outputs if only they could afford to, but they’ve been charging reasonably for electricity all this time… and most of them are operating off rivers that were dammed in the 1790s, there’s no new habitat devastation going on and honestly taking the dams down would likely cause more damage than improving them.
(New York State generates more hydropower than any other state east of the Rockies.)
