Wind turbine farms are springing up all over the country, not only here in the US but around the world. Lots of people seem to have problems with wind turbines, specially the giants that are used on wind farms.

This problem may be partially taken care of by moving those gigantic wind turbines out to sea. Sounds good doesn’t it? I sort of like the idea. The only problem I have with it is “How will offshore wind turbine farms save me money and will they be properly maintained to keep our oceans from being polluted?”

Here is an exert from an article posted on Scientific American:

The waters of the Jersey Shore may soon become home to the nation’s first deepwater wind turbines. New Jersey officials recently announced the state would help fund an initiative by Garden State Offshore Energy to build a 350-megawatt wind farm 16 miles (26 kilometers) offshore. The state wants by 2020 many more of these parks, at least 3,000 megawatts worth, or about 13 percent of the state’s total electricity needs.

“This is probably the first of many ambitious goals to be set by states,” says Greg Watson, a senior advisor on clean energy technology to the governor of Massachusetts. “Three thousand megawatts is significant. With that you’re able to offset or even prevent fossil fuel plants from being built.”

The federal government is about to open up to wind energy development vast swaths of deep ocean waters, and states and wind park developers are vying to be the first to seize the new frontier. Wind parks in these waters can generate more energy than near shore and onshore sites, they don’t ruin seascape views, and they don’t interfere as much with other ocean activities.

Read the rest of the story here.

Now I don’t want you to get me wrong here because I think that offshore wind turbine farms are a great idea to reduce our dependence of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. I also think that you should get the benefit from free renewable wind and solar energy.

As a home owner that pays higher and higher electrical bills each month it is to your benefit to take the money you are spending on electricity as a monthly bill, like rent, and turn it into an investment that will give you a return, like home ownership.

By investing in wind and solar energy to power your home today, you are investing in something that will, over time, not only pay for itself but will, in time, give you completely free electrical power to run all the appliances in your home.

How would it feel to NOT have to pay an electrical bill every month? How much would it save you? Does that thought put a smile on your face?

In today’s world you have so many options available to you even if you are not mechanically inclines. You know that with step by step instructions you can do most anything. Also if you get into something you aren’t sure of it is easy to hire a handyman for a couple of days to help you finish a project.

By using the Free Energy Options manual to create your vertical wind turbines or solar power panels you save thousands of dollars. If you pay someone several hundred to help you do some of the things you aren’t comfortable doing you still save thousands.

You can build a 1,000 watt windmill for about $200. To fully power your home, supposing you had a steady 12 MPH wind and used between 1200 and 1500 KWH of electrical power each month, you would need 3 vertical wind turbines at 1,000 watts each or 15 solar panels at 200 watts each,

The thing is that you don’t have to do it all at one time. Also you only have to tie into your power grid once and then you tie everything else into the converter. Free Energy Options makes it easy, get your copy here.

Technorati Tags: free energy options, renewable energy, solar energy, vertical wind turbines, wind energy, wind turbines

Since this is posted at THonline.com I won’t rewrite it but just give you a couple of highlights to see if you are interested in reading more about the reaction to a proposed vertical wind turbine farm in the Cuba City area.

As with all new things, and since we have been using wind energy for only a thousand years or so it must be considered new by many, there are proponents and opponents to any proposal. Also like any normal proposal people come up with valid and absurd reasons for doing or not doing anything. A vertical wind turbine farm proposal is no different.

It seams though that one of the biggest issues associated with a vertical wind turbine farm is low frequency noise and wind blade flicker. You see as a horizontal vertical wind turbine blade turns during the day it cast a moving shadow. This moving shadow is called wind blade flicker.

If you put your attention on this flickering shadow for long periods of time it may cause some people to have a sick stomach, headaches and other uncomfortable fillings. The thing is though this filchering shadow from the vertical wind turbine blades is only on your house or property for a short period of time in the early morning or late afternoon and shouldn’t pose any problem for you at all.

Think of it like this, if the room you spend most of you time in during the day just happens to have one or two windows on the side of the house facing toward the vertical wind turbine where the blade shadow would fall directly on your window, you will notice it during that part of the day. If the shadow is coming from any other direction there is no way you will notice unless you look for it.

Another way of putting it is “if you want to find something to bitch and moan about you will and there is nothing in this world that will stop you. If you want to find a way to be sick and seek pity from others you will and there is nothing in this world that will stop you”.

The moral of this story as far as I am concerned is “If you look for crap you will find it, if you look for gold you will find that as well”. You just have to decide what to look for.

You can read the story at THonline.com.

You can also get my report on The Basics of Creating Totally Renewable Energy and as a Bonus another report on The Effects of Low Frequency Noise on Your Health. Just put you name and email address in the form at the bottom of the right hand column and click the “Let’s Go Green Now” button.

Video depecting noise and shadow of a large vertical wind turbine.

Technorati Tags: vertical wind turbine, wind blade

For years politicians have been using the price of energy, especially oil, as a platform for running on. Promises for reducing our dependency on foreign oil and putting more effort into the use and development of natural gas, wind and solar energy have abounded with no results.

To become an energy independent nation we the citizens will ultimately have to take control of our own future. By taking a stand in our local communities for the use of wind and solar energy we will begin the ball rolling. By letting our politicians know that we the people are taking a stand and that if they want to be in office when the next turn comes up they had best get on the band wagon we are designing our own futures.

If you don’t take a stand you are still designing your own future but it most likely won’t be the one you hope for. We can do this one home at a time by making our own wind power homes. By using a horizontal or vertical axis turbine to produce just 30% of the energy you use you can save money and build a better future for yourself and your family.

Just think, if 10% of the home owners in the US were to build their own vertical axis wind turbine and turn their homes into wind power homes that produce 30% of the electrical energy they use that would be an overall increase of about 5% of totally renewable energy use across the nation.

When you add the commercial wind farms into the equation we could reduce our dependency on fossil fuels by a total of 10% or more over the next 2 years instead of 10 years. This alone would make our politicians start understanding where we the people we heading and give them the power to make that change themselves.

Solar and wind power homes are the way to reduce your electrical bill. When you consider that the average home uses over 1,000 kilowatt hours (KWH) of electricity every month and that with a couple thousand dollars and a little ingenuity on your part you could be providing over 500 of those KWH, the dollar signs begin to appear in your eyes.

Can you imagine living near the beach and a good size storm comes in with winds of 100 miles per hour or more? The electricity goes out, your heat or ac stops and you are left in the dark.

That wouldn’t be the case if you have a vertical axis wind turbine that produces 500 KWH of electricity with an average wind speed of 12 miles per hour. With wind speeds of 100 mph your electrical output using a vertical axis turbine would be multiple times the average.

When wind speeds double your output doesn’t just double it increases exponentially based on the maximum output of the wind turbine design. That means that small increase in wind speed creates a large increase in electrical output.

For a future of plentiful, clean, renewable energy it will take you taking a stand. Your future is in your hands, make the most of it. Find out how you can turn your home into a solar or wind power home.

Technorati Tags: vertical axis turbine, vertical wind turbine, wind power home

Wind power put into use by a vertical wind turbine is something that a lot of people are getting more and more interested in. When you think about it there are any number of times during a storm, when the wind is strongest that a power cable breaks or a power converter explodes.

When this happens you and all the people below the brake or exploded converter are without electricity until it is fixed. Some time the fix is a few hours but sometime it is days. In steps a vertical wind turbine that actually put out more electricity as the wind picks up.

Think about it. When you are most likely to be without power a vertical wind turbine is producing maximum power. That in itself is a fantastic reason to have a nice little one or two kilowatt wind power generator.

That is one of the reasons that Jesse Houston, Director of Planning and Community Development in Ocean City, presented the Planning and Zoning Commission with ideas on what a vertical wind turbine zoning law should look like.

Jesse stated that “If more people do this, you have got that energy independence. You’re not going to have blackouts. And, when the storm comes, you’re still going to be able to watch your TV.”

From the looks of things Ocean City will have a fair and equatable zoning law for the development of wind power and the building of vertical home wind turbines by the residence of that beautiful resort.

Now Ocean City isn’t the only community in the news lately that is creating specific zoning laws for the construction of residential wind turbines. In Clovis, NM the Planning and Zoning Commission have proposed ordinances that would regulate the building of vertical wind turbines in the city.

This ordinance would regulate the allowable height of the vertical wind turbine towers and the appropriate size of the property where the vertical wind turbine could be installed. The nice thing about this commission is that they had enough sense to get a residential wind turbine dealer in to help clarify exactly what was needed.

The very first thing that Jerry Griffin, the dealer, told them was the city would need to modify their proposed height requirement. The present draft set the maximum height for a vertical wind turbines at 35 feet. Jerry said a typical wind turbine would need at least 70 feet to perform well. “For a turbine to go up in town, a 35-foot cap would make the turbine mostly worthless,

Jerry had other suggestion as well concerning the size of a typical residential wind turbine and how the system worked best in high winds. Any how the ordinance was passed in june and the commissioners have moved on to a feasibility study for a wind farm.

The main idea here is that people all across the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and nearly everywhere are converting to renewable wind and solar energy. That is our future. By keeping an eye on the future and enjoying the present we will build a wonderful place for our children to grow in.

Start building for your future today by saving money and using renewable energy. Build your own 1,000 watt vertical wind turbine for under $200 and help create even more energy and save even more money by building your own solar power panels. It is easy, safe and very inexpensive. Start your project today.

An idea for a vertical axis wind turbine that you could find a way to build yourself.

Technorati Tags: home wind turbine, residential wind turbine, vertical wind turbine, wind power generator

It’s true. Wind energy is a clean, pollution free energy source but some residential wind turbines produce load noise and when attached to buildings can cause vibrations. Of course anything that moves can cause noise and vibration when it is not installed or maintained properly..

All around the world there are incidents of residential wind turbines that are causing local residents problems. In one case in Scotland the residential wind turbine on Braunton Masions is noisy and causing the building to vibrate. The owner of the apartments and the Barnstaple Mansion apartments next to it has proposed putting solar panels and two wind turbines up to produce the electricity the building uses..

The residents are opposing the residential wind turbine but have no complaints about the solar power system. Since installation of the vertical wind turbine tenets and neighbors say the noise put out by the residential wind turbine is irritating and that their television reception has been adversely affected..

There has been other incidence with noise and with hydro carbon pollution in the environment. When asking about these incidents of spokesmen for the renewable energy industry they claim that the noise and vibration usually come from poor installation practices and the pollution from failure to maintain upkeep of the units adequately..

We all know that wind blowing through the trees makes noise. The same can be said for wind blowing through residential wind turbine blades. There will be some noise when there are high wind speeds but the noise should be minimal specially if the blades are balanced and all the parts maintained..

Some people have noted that the noise from the residential wind turbines can cause health issues in adults and children. Low noise emissions have been studied in the past in conjunction with many different physical and mental ailments. I have found a study by the government on low frequency noise and the effect it has on your health..

You can download a copy along with my report on totally renewable energy by signing up for my news letter. Off course this is an outright bribe but that is alright because the information you will get from my newsletter on residential wind turbines and residential solar power systems is interesting and helpful. You can always opt out if your aren’t happy..

Just remember that clean, pollution free and totally renewable energy is essential to your future and the future of your children. The sooner you decide to take part in the change over to residential wind and solar power the faster we can bring the future of a pollution free environment into the present..

Here are two different videos that relate to wind farm turbine noise. You be the judge of why one is different than the other.

Video 1:

Video 2:

Technorati Tags: renewable energy, residential wind turbine, solar power system

It appears that politics in small town Canada is about the same as it is in the USA. I was reading a story about an Ottawa man that had purchased a vertical axis wind turbine to put in his back yard that would produce about 15% of his electrical bill. .

Ottawa has a local ordinance against structures in your yard higher that 5 meters. It happens that the vertical axis wind turbine has to be installed at least 10 meters high for it to produce the power it is designed to produce. That same bylaw require the vertical axis wind turbine to be set far back from the property line that separates Mr. Findlay’s lot from those of his neighbors, but his yard is too small to meet the requirement..

Mr.Findlay petitioned the city’s committee of adjustment to grant him an exception to those bylaws but had a few of his neighbors, that had some concerns about safety, voice decent until the safety issue was resolved. Of course he had some that also voiced agreement with installing the vertical axis wind turbine to generate his own electricity..

As with all political decisions at the time of request the decision was to “look for a way to make it happen” but the committee also wanted to have an engineer look at the safety issue. Mr. Findlay said the support for the vertical axis wind turbine was strong, well-anchored, and designed so it can only fall toward his own property. .

I am of the opinion that one citizens request, without a good sum of money backing him, wasn’t enough to sway the powers that be. That is one reason I like living in the county though the restriction are starting to get fairly tight there also.

As an update posted on 10/03/08 jamborees wrote: The city committee turned down the application on Thursday. Good thing too, with this behind them they can return to the real business of helping large developers run roughshod over these same neighborhood zoning bylaws. read the whole story here.

As you can probably imagine the rest of the comments are a little derogatory toward politician but to be fair they do have to consider the good of the community and the cash flow coming into the city coffers..

At any rate installing wind or solar energy to save money on your electrical bill is a fantastic idea. I would applaud anyone that uses clean, pollution free, renewable energy to produce electricity and save money on their electrical bill. .

Get your DAY Solar and Wind Energy Guide here.

Get your 1.9 KWH Vertical Axis Wind Turbine kit here.

Get your 1.9 Solar Energy System here.

Technorati Tags: vertical axis wind turbine, vertical wind turbine, wind and solar guide

This is a video showing how Steve Spenser builds an vertical wind turbine from the ground up. Once you see how simple it really is then you may decide to build your own vertical wind turbine just to say you did it.

Take a look at the video and you can discuss your opinion of the value of a vertical wind turbine in the comments section at the end of the post.

As you see from the video they hand made most of the vertical wind turbine. Just think how much easier it would be if you found most of the parts already to put together.

You get your turbine from an old large round electric blower you got off an old AC or shop fan, your 1,000 watt generator and converter from ebay and the rest of the parts from the junk yard or local hardware store. This would end up being your $100 vertical axis wind turbine.

Sounds good doesn’t it. Now we have to make sure your neighbors will let you put your homemade vertical axis wind turbine to good use without making such a big fuss.

Now I understand if you want a little help in finding the parts and making the vertical axis wind turbine. To that end you can get complete and detailed step-by-step instruction on building your own money and power saving vertical axis wind turbine by clicking this link: Wind and Solar Instructional Guide

Technorati Tags: vertical axis wind turbine, vertical wind turbine, wind and solar guide

Ron Stimmel of the American Wind Energy Association explains what every homeowner should know before installing a small wind turbine on their property.

Why would someone install a small wind turbine?

Generating your own clean electricity is a pretty powerful motivator for a lot of people. Every time a turbine spins around, those are clean, green electrons being pumped right into your own house, your own farm, and that’s a very empowering feeling. You become your own power plant, essentially. Not only that, it’s a really great financial hedge against rising and unpredictable costs of electricity.

What is the first step someone should take if they are interested in installing a small wind turbine?

You call a manufacturer or installer, and they come out, look around, and assess the physical features of the land; if your vegetation is pushed in one direction - it’s called flagging - or if you live on a hilltop rather than in a valley. They compare that with other wind data from airports, satellites, or some private companies that map wind resources. Usually, formal wind resource assessments are not necessary for small wind turbines, because the expense and time isn’t justified.

If you live on at least an acre of open land and you can tell a good story about how windy it is you’re usually a good candidate for a wind turbine. If you can fly a kite or have trouble keeping a patio umbrella on your back deck, you probably have a good resource.

Allianz Knowledge
This came from http://knowledge.allianz.com, who have interest in wind power generation.

Determining if a small wind turbine wold be worth the hassle and expense of putting on your property isn’t that hard. First you can simply look around your property to see if you have an area where you can put the small wind turbine with a distance of about 150 or more feet of open space in each direction. The second thing you can do is a geographic search on google to determine what the general wind speeds are in your area of the country.

Once you have completed these two task you will have a good idea whether or not the small wind turbine would be able to work at a high enough capacity to make it worth installing.

Next you need to look at how many KWH of electricity each month how much you spend on that electricity. By dividing the total amount you spend by the number of KWH you use you can determine the cost per KWH. If your KWH is over $0.10 then installing a small wind turbine is worth the expense.

Of course you will need to look into the zoning laws in your area and the incentive that are available. You will also want to make sure you can tie you small wind turbine into your electrical grid.

Now that you have go all the hard and dreary effort out of the way it is time to start having fun. If you like projects that are reasonably simple and fun then I suggest you build your own small wind turbine. You can get a great step-by-step guide by clicking this link: Small Wind Turbine

If you don’t want to have all the fun but would rather have a pre-build small wind turbine you can click this link: Pre-built Small Wind Turbine

Technorati Tags: small wind turbine, wind energy

I have been hearing rumbles about physical ailment scares from some people when it comes to living in the area where there are vertical axis wind turbines. I decided to do a little research on the subject. Below is a typical complaint and what I could find concerning the legitimacy of the complaint.

Complaint about Vertical Wind Turbines

Study suggests living close to an energy farm can cause a variety of physical ailments.

“I started to cry,” Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. “They’re going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there’s the medical thing.”

“The medical thing” is new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood “night terrors” and other health problems.

[...] Pierpont’s findings suggest that low-frequency noise and vibration generated by wind machines can have an effect on the inner ear, triggering headaches; difficulty sleeping; tinnitus, or ringing in the ears; learning and mood disorders; panic attacks; irritability; disruption of equilibrium, concentration and memory; and childhood behavior problems.

Concerns also are coming out of Europe about low-frequency noise from newly built wind turbines.

Houston Chronicle

My response to Vertical Wind Turbine Concerns

This was posted by Coyote with the link http://www.peakoil.com/article41917.html, the question begs to be answered, Is this a legitimate concern or is it a ploy by the oil producers to take eyes away from alternative energies.

Here is a short youtube video of a vertical wind turbine farm in Oregon. You can tell by the sound of the wind blowing over the audio recording mike that it is rather load by itself.

I tired to run down the physical ailment story and each time it dead ended at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/health/5947095.html where there was no information and an error message. So, since I can’t find the story I can’t validate it.

What I did validate is that low frequency noise and the effects it appears to have on some people has been studied for years. You see we live around low frequency noises all the time.

You car running, computer humming, wheels turning, you name it and in todays world there is most likely a low frequency noise associated with it. In truth in the days of old, meaning anytime in the last few hundred years, there was plenty of low frequency noise as well.

I have a study that was done in 2003 on the effects of low frequency noise and how it affects your health. As a bonus to my free “The Basics of Totally Renewable Energy” report and weekly newsletter you can also get this study on “Low Frequency Noise and its effect on you” from the download page.

It is fasinating reading so make sure you get your copy today.

Technorati Tags: low frequency noise, physical ailment story, vertical wind turbine

I was over at smart planet.com this morning looking at a news story they had involving small vertical axis wind turbines built for residential use. It appears from the story there are lots of people developing vertical axis wind turbines for home use now with more and more people jumping on the band wagon every day.

One of the things I have noticed about nearly every model of vertical axis wind turbines that I have seen is that they are flashy and designed to be visible. Well as far as I am concerned I want my vertical axis wind turbine to blend in with the environment. I don’t really want it to stand out in the crowd. If it does stand out I would like it to accentuate the senary and not clash with it.

With that in mind why do you think that nearly every new model of vertical wind turbines are made from materials that reflect the sun and can be seen for miles if something isn’t blocking your view. I believe that is one reason why so many communities are not completely for the introduction of vertical axis wind turbines in their community.

I can see their point. Imagine if you will a unit setting about 70 to 100 feet in the air with shiny silver blades, 12 to 24 feet in diameter, and a shiny silver pole with the sun reflecting off of it. Kids staring at it could go blind. Reflected light could cause recks, etc.

Yes I know I am strengthening it somewhat but you get the idea when it comes to people apposed to something. What we and companies that build vertical axis wind turbines should do is to construct them in such a manner that they blend as much as possible into the senary around them.

I know that you have to get a vertical axis wind turbine above things that are close enough to block the wind from it because without wind it is virtually useless. Here is the deal. If you don’t have enough open space, about 100 feet in every direction, for the vertical axis turbine to allow the wind flow to get to it at a specific level, like just above your roof, then you have to put it high enough to access the wind.

In urban developments it usually isn’t trees that cause problems, it is usually structures that are taller than yours that block the wind. In that case you will have to get it above the hight of the structure. If you can’t do that then you next bet is to build yourself a solar array to catch the energy from the sun and convert that to electricity.

Well there is good news for everyone. There are a umber of manuals out there that give you detailed instruction on building your on vertical axis wind turbine as well as your own solar panel array. between the two you can produce 100% of the electricity you use and maybe even a little extra to sell back to the utility company.

Have them paying you for a change. Sounds like a far fetched idea doesn’t it or maybe this will cost me so much money that it will take 20 years to pay off the bill for building this power generating array. Well you can relax and rest in peace. You can build a vertical axis turbine with alternator and electrical conversion units for under $200.

You can also build solar panels for your home for about that as well. With this method you could build a solar panel each month and turn your house into a solar home is a year or so. Add to that the vertical axis turbine to convert wind energy to electricity and you are set without and electrical bill.

Sounds good doesn’t it. It does to me and if you think so to, then go get your complete guide to building  your own electrical generating system using wind and solar energy here: Wind and Solar Energy Guide

Technorati Tags: vertical axis turbine, vertical axis wind turbine