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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Going Green: Got Wind?
  • Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:59:16 -0700

Going Green: Got Wind?
Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1860920,00.html

Doug Morrell had already installed solar panels on his house in Coopersville,
Mich., but he was eager to get a little bit greener. So the 52-year-old Navy
veteran bought something that might seem more at home on the Dutch
countryside than in a small town in western Michigan: his own personal wind
turbine. The 33-ft.-high (10 m) machine, whose blades span 7 ft. (2 m) in
diameter, sits next to the pole barn 100 yd. (90 m) from Morrell's home.
(Turbines like Morrell's convert the energy of the wind to electricity, while
old windmills are geared for mechanical power, like pulling water from a
well.) On days with decent wind--which occur frequently enough, since he can
feel the breeze from Lake Michigan--the $16,000 Swift wind turbine can
generate 1.5 kilowatts (kW) an hour, i.e., enough to power the average
lightbulb for 15 hours. Together with his solar array, that's enough to take
care of much of his electricity bill. "It's clean energy we don't have to dig
for. It just comes right to us," says Morrell. And best of all, he says,
"it's fun watching our meter run backward instead of forward."

Thanks in part to a new tax credit put into place by Congress in October,
owning your own wind turbine could be the next green trend. While it's true
that wind power has taken off in the U.S.--adding more in new capacity to the
electrical grid last year than any other power source--most of that increase
comes from utility wind farms, vast fields of turbines more than 300 ft. (90
m) tall. For homeowners seeking renewable-energy sources, however,
better-known solar power has always dominated. Home solar power currently
generates 12 times as much energy as small-wind power, which is defined as
turbines that have a capacity of 100 kW or less (though most household
turbines will produce 10 kW at most). That's partly due to the fact that
residential wind turbines require space and sky--at least half an acre of
open land--to get access to consistent winds. Still, according to the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), some 15 million homes in the U.S.
fit that definition--and small turbines, unlike large wind farms, can be
productive in weaker breezes, which puts more of the country in play, though
the best areas are still windy spots like the Midwest or West Texas.

What's really held back residential wind power has been the lack of federal
subsidies, which have fed the growth of other renewables like solar and
large-scale wind. "We've had zero federal assistance," says Ron Stimmel,
AWEA's small-wind expert.

But when Congress passed the bailout bill this fall, it added a 30% tax
credit for small-wind projects, which Stimmel believes will enable the
industry to grow 40% next year, even in a down market.

In other words, small wind may not be small potatoes for much longer. And
that could be a boost for domestic green businesses as well: U.S. firms
control 98% of the small-wind market, in contrast to large-scale wind and
solar, in which foreign manufacturers dominate. "Since the tax credit, our
phone has been ringing off the hook," says Andy Kruse, a co-founder of
Southwest Windpower, a major small-scale turbine producer in Flagstaff, Ariz.
"It's really exciting to see the market coming to us."






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