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Run your home or apartment on wind and solar energy TODAY!
Switching to wind energy costs
me about an additional $1 per day
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Can I do this if I live in an apartment?
YES!!!!
How does this work?
The electrical system we use is a vast electric grid.
Companies put energy into the grid and others take
the energy out.
A company that gets their energy from the wind
puts energy into the grid.
This energy costs more than oil (still).
For the company to survive they need to cover the
differential or they won't be able to sell energy
into the grid.
By paying this difference to the wind company,
they can produce wind power and put it on the grid.
This means that I still pay money to my regular power company.
In addition I pay the wind company the difference that allows
them to sell the power.
REC = Renewable Energy Certificates = how they work
Who Sells Wind Power?
See
Resources (below) for other links.
Is it expensive?
Wind energy is surprisingly inexpensive.
From my electric power bill I found that
I use about 13,870 kwh (kilo-watt hours) of energy per year
on the average.
That's about 13870/12 = 1156 kwh per month.
The company sells blocks of 100 kwh,
so I use about 1156/100 = 12 blocks per month.
The blocks cost $2.50 per month, so I need to pay an additional
12 x $2.50 = $30 per month above and beyond my regular bill, which
averages about $80 per month.
So
switching to wind energy costs
me about an additional $1 per day.
That's a pretty good deal to make me free from oil at home!
They tell me that
"The environmental benefits of your purchase are equal to
the planting of 972 trees per year."
Can I Visit The Wind Mills?
How to visit the Somerset Windmill Farm.
I visited the Somerset site on 2002 November 11.
(See photo to the right and above.)
The mills are AWSOME!
They are massive and make a powerful whooshing sound.
There was no breeze on the ground but they are so tall
and efficient that that they easily caught the wind
that was higher up. I could see clouds moving in the
same direction that the mills were facing.
Resources
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Virtual Plant Tour - a nice movie from
MidAmerica Energy,
who have got 257 wind turbines operating
on 2005 Dec 14,
Wind Turbines Switched On,
360 megawatts, enough for 100,000 homes.
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- Arcadia Power
2016 Nov 13
- Reengineering the Electric Grid
by Thomas J. Overbye,
American Scientist, May-June 2000,
vol 88,
pages 220-229.
"Except for a few islands and some small isolated systems, the entire
electrical grid in North America is really just one big circuit."
- www.green-e.org:
Green-e is a voluntary certification program for
renewable electricity products.
Learn what forms of Green energy are available to you
- http://www.homepower.com/:
Home Power: The hands-on Journal of Home-made power
shows how you can set up your own renewable energy for your home.
- Did you know that
ski lifts in Aspen are run by wind power?
(Denver Post Saturday, November 30, 2002).
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GreenEnergyJobs.com
helps people find jobs in the green energy field.
According to an
article in the Environmental News Network
(Thursday, January 16, 2003,
by
GreenBiz.com)
the company runs all its operations using green energy separate from the
grid!
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http://www.windpower.org/
"has more than 100 pages on wind, turbine siting, technology, electrical grid,
environmental and economic aspects of wind energy and history".
WARNING:
this site does not allow the mozilla browser!
How foolish!
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The Cape Wind Project ---
"the first offshore wind park in the United States will be
built on Horseshoe Shoal, five miles off the Cape Cod shore in Massachusetts.
The wind park will consist of 130 wind turbines, with a total maximum output
of 420 megawatts. In average conditions the wind park will produce enough
electricity to power three-quarters of the Cape and Islands with clean,
renewable energy."
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Woodstock windfarm
in Woodstock, Minnesota.
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Colorado Green
will be Colorado's largest wind power project.
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Scottish inventor David Gordon has created
a mini turbine to generate electricity on top of homes
(google: David Gordon mini turbine electricity blades).
Guardian story
(2003 Dec 14)
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The British Wind Energy Association
(2003 Dec 14)
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Freedom Tower, the replacement of the World Trade Center
in New York City,
"is to rise 70 floors and be topped by wind-harvesting turbines that
designers predict will provide 20 percent of the building's energy."
(CNN, 2003 Dec 19)
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How many windmills would $87 billion buy?
(2004 Jan 13)
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Russ Paielli
writes that
nuclear power is another alternative:
http://russp.org/nucpower.htm
(2004 Jan 17)
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Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
of MIT
Kicking the Oil Habit
(2004 Jan 29)
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Chesapeake Climate Action Network
(2004 Apr 3)
They report:
"March 29, thanks to enormous grassroots support, the Maryland House of
Delegates voted overwhelmingly in favor of a landmark clean energy bill that
bolsters the fight against global warming and air pollution in the state. By a
bi-partisan veto-proof margin of 108-29, the House embraced a bill that
requires Maryland utilities to obtain 7.5 percent of their electricity from
renewable sources like wind and solar power within a decade."
YIPIEE!!!!
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Capture the Tides!
The Heavyweight Sea Snail
a turbine from
The Robert Gordon University,
School of Engineering
Sustainable Resources Technology
(2004 Apr 9)
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www.energystar.gov
Energy Star
(2004 Nov 8)
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Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
at the U.S. Department of Energy
(2004 Nov 8)
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Whole Foods Market Makes Largest Ever Purchase of Wind Energy Credits in
United States: Historic renewable energy credit purchase to offset 100% of
company's electricity use
(2006 Jan 10)
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Co-sponsor the Clean Edge Act of 2006
(2006 May 20)
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Thanks to
Janet Brockett
for telling me about wind power
and to
Paul Copleman (paul.copleman@newwindenergy.com)
for answering all my questions.
Tom Schneider's Home Page
origin: 2002 Dec 13
updated:
2022 Dec 04: recovered page