Honeywell wind turbine hits hardware stores nationwide

[mawilson 2,133]

Very cool

Wonder if I can put it on my balcony....

[HappyInHawaii 6]

This is model Im looking to buy. The monopole and its shipping is a big expense.

skystream

Edited April 22, 2011 by HappyInHawaii

[Zero Sum 305]

This is model Im looking to buy. The monopole and its shipping is a big expense.

skystream

Wow up to 400kWh/month. If I may ask what are your total up-front expenses looking like?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Wow up to 400kWh/month. If I may ask what are your total up-front expenses looking like?

$12K - $18K installed. Ouch!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

A restarant in liberal Burlington VT has installed a wind turbine and incorporated it into their sign, they made it look like the wheel of a bicycle which fits the restarant theme...looks pretty neat, I thought.

The city is making them remove it. Says it looks bad. This after approving it to begin with. Too many pro choice liberals complained. So much for green energy.

Edited April 22, 2011 by Gary and Alla

[slim 1,525]

So it's more expensive than buying power off the grid.... well, what happens when the grid goes off?

If there's no power available for only .10/kwh, wouldn't your power be priceless?

[Zero Sum 305]

$12K - $18K installed. Ouch!

Hot dang. I hope that if they get it done they seek all the breaks available to them.

So it's more expensive than buying power off the grid.... well, what happens when the grid goes off?

If there's no power available for only .10/kwh, wouldn't your power be priceless?

Great question. This implies that eventually the ability to produce electricity will be as commonplace as owning a car.

[slim 1,525]

Great question. This implies that eventually the ability to produce electricity will be as commonplace as owning a car.

And then we won't need big oil anymore either.

Think about it - in the very near future, for $20,000 or so you can hang some sh!t on your roof, balcony, etc., and power your whole home, your car(s) and never need to buy electricity from the grid or gasoline from the gas stations.

Our society could be radically different.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.alaskanewspapers.com/article.php?article=1040wind_power_for_dillingham_courthouse_spells <--- Our court house here got this turbine up and running last spring. It cost an arm and a leg though. The shipped the damn thing in from Scotland of all places. This thing rocks though. We get a lot of wind here and after it fills up the battery's it kicks the extra energy to the local electric company who then donates it to the school. It makes way more than the court house can use.

There's suppose to be a webiste for that thing were you can login and see what it's doing...like kw per hour, speed, etc...

[slim 1,525]

I read a study a few years back that touted the potential of solar power converters on the rooftops of the top 10 US retailers being able to produce enough power for the whole US.

Couple that with wind energy too and we'd never run out of juice - and never need to buy it from pseudo-govt. conglomerates.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I read a study a few years back that touted the potential of solar power converters on the rooftops of the top 10 US retailers being able to produce enough power for the whole US.

Couple that with wind energy too and we'd never run out of juice - and never need to buy it from pseudo-govt. conglomerates.

They will get you on batteries. You got to replace those every two to three years, if there is no grid to bank the excess generated power. That is one of the drawbacks of hybrid/electric cars. Ask anyone that owned an electric golf cart how much that can be. Lead is a commodity, and is going up in price rapidly.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I read a study a few years back that touted the potential of solar power converters on the rooftops of the top 10 US retailers being able to produce enough power for the whole US.

Couple that with wind energy too and we'd never run out of juice - and never need to buy it from pseudo-govt. conglomerates.

Walmart Electric Company!

Around here there are a lot of rural homes operating on very small hydo-power plants. They literally drill into the mountain to tap a spring, or just tap a natural one on their property and turn a small water turbine. The entire thing, including an inverter to charge batteries, fits in a building the size of an outhouse (plus a bank of batteries and a rectifier, usually in the house somewhere, usually a basement.

The water turbine charges the batteries 24/7 and the house runs off the batteries. Seems to work great!

[mawilson 2,133]

So it's more expensive than buying power off the grid.... well, what happens when the grid goes off?

If there's no power available for only .10/kwh, wouldn't your power be priceless?

Yep!

[SuperDuper! 230]

Exactly. People tend to think in terms of black and white, and that is a disservice to themselves. One wind turbine is fine, but people that usually invest in energy efficiency tend to retrofit their homes to be more energy efficient anyway- water heaters, furnaces, heat pumps, PV cells, etc. This is why an initial upfront cost of $10-$20K ends up netting the homeowner positive cash flow in much less than the time instances I've calculated above from the utilities owing them money for energy production.

So you are saying that you can drop $20K no problem next week to energy efficient your home? Must be nice to be a 5 percenter at the top of the economic chain. Good luck w/that.

[slim 1,525]

Lead may be going up in price but batteries are still relatively cheap compared to purchasing electric every day.

What Gary's talking about is going to be possible for almost all homes in the near future. Maybe not from hydro, but from wind or sun. Who knows, maybe hydrogen power will finally be online!