12-03-2008, 07:10 AM
Wind would be great but it is pretty hard to get a productive location. The Windspires look neat but if you step back and look at wind power in general there are almost no commercially successful vertical axis wind turbines. There is a lot of argument over why. However, part of their sales pitch is that they are only 30 feet tall. If you approached the problem in a totally dispassionate way and looked at what the industry does when sizing a wind turbine you see that before they even discuss what type of turbine to install they evaluate the site. That includes evaluating the wind profile going up from the ground a considerable ways. Right away you see that 30 feet is nothing. Wind turbines are routinely mounted on 150 foot towers because that is where the wind is. The wind speed might be double up there what it is at ground lever and since energy is proportional to the cube of the wind speed that means the available energy is 8 times greater.
It is human nature to seek out new things. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot. In this case you can buy horizontal axis wind turbines on a tall tower that are commercially available off the shelf all day long and those companies have been in business for decades but it is difficult to find a company selling vertical axis machines that is anything but flash in the pan. You can always find offers for the turbines because they seem to appeal to our nature to get ahead of the crowd, get rich quick, do things better, whatever. These companies always tout how low their towers are as though that is a good thing. It is good in the sense that maintenance is easy, but anyone who had seriously tried to install an effective wind turbine would know right off the bat that low is bad. It is not even about the design of the turbine. Low is bad. High is good. Wind good enough for a turbine is too windy for people to hang out in and do anything besides windsurf. The windspire brochure showed a bank of these turbines on a building top adjacent to what appeared to be a restaurant dining area. That is ridiculous.
I sound really negative. That is not my intent. I just want to point out that wind power is demanding in terms of proper location. My property would be no good, for example.
It is human nature to seek out new things. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot. In this case you can buy horizontal axis wind turbines on a tall tower that are commercially available off the shelf all day long and those companies have been in business for decades but it is difficult to find a company selling vertical axis machines that is anything but flash in the pan. You can always find offers for the turbines because they seem to appeal to our nature to get ahead of the crowd, get rich quick, do things better, whatever. These companies always tout how low their towers are as though that is a good thing. It is good in the sense that maintenance is easy, but anyone who had seriously tried to install an effective wind turbine would know right off the bat that low is bad. It is not even about the design of the turbine. Low is bad. High is good. Wind good enough for a turbine is too windy for people to hang out in and do anything besides windsurf. The windspire brochure showed a bank of these turbines on a building top adjacent to what appeared to be a restaurant dining area. That is ridiculous.
I sound really negative. That is not my intent. I just want to point out that wind power is demanding in terms of proper location. My property would be no good, for example.