The money isn’t there because it won’t work – why spend money on something that’s doomed to failure? I really hate to ruin your day because I too know what it feels like to believe in something and be 110% sure that you’re right, but unfortunately your way of thinking is just plain incorrect. Might I ask exactly what alternative power method(s) you’re talking about? I’ve covered all of basics but water power… if you want hydrodynamic power generation you have to fill up hundreds of miles of valley with water and build a dam… once again worse than a mining operation. I ask you to please research the basic mechanics of power generation, the transfer of energy, conservation of energy, and the laws of thermodynamics. If you really punch the numbers up only one solution really becomes obvious – and it’s already in place.

Lets start by discussion power usage and consumption. The average household in America uses 38.35 kWh a day. A kWh is 1000 watts used over one hour – or one kilowatt. A typical central AC draws about 3.5 kilowatts, so in an hour it uses 3.5 kilowatt-hours. And a 100-watt light bulb uses 0.1 kW, since 1000 watts = 1 kilowatt. Now, lets discuss a windmill. The physics involved when turbines harvest the power of the wind to produce windmill power sets the maximum theoretical efficiency limit of any wind turbine to 59%. When real world engineering requirements are also factored in, even the best turbines only attain 35% to 45% efficiency, and other essential system components such as the generator, bearings, and power transmission add further inefficiencies. As a result, only 10-30% of the power of the wind is ever actually converted into usable electricity. Lets do some math:

In our case, our average wind speed over the year is about 4 meters/second, which is pretty reasonable [tops in January at 5 m/s, bottoms in July at 3 m/s].

The swept area of an average 2 KW turbine for household use (which has a blade diameter of about 11 feet) is:

Swept area = 22/7 x radius² (i.e. Area of a circle=¶.r²)

= 22/7 x (1.8)² = 10.2 m2

So Power Output = 0.615 x 10.2 x 4³
= 0.615 x 10.2 x (4 x 4 x 4)

= 401.5 watts

Multiply this by 24 hours gives us 9635 watt hours or 9.6 kwh a day. Far short of our goal here. Unless you’re going to have four of these things in your yard or four for every household perched on a hill somewhere taking up wildlife habitat it’s a dumb idea.

Now we’ll talk a little about solar. A typical panel, we’ll say 65 x 40 inches has a peak power output of 200 watts or so, and costs about 700 dollars. That is in full sun of course, on a typical day you will average about 50 watts or so per hour with cloud cover and our mountainous terrain blocking much of the days sun over the entire 10 to 12 hour light cycle. Then we have to consider night time, with no output. All residences are different, but lets say you can fit 15 of these things on your roof, you’ll average 750 watts per hour, or .75 kwh. Multiply that by a 12 hour light cycle and you get 9000 watts or 9 kwh a day. Still, far short. Then you have to invest in storage batteries and an inverter to convert DC into usable AC to conserve the power through the night time.

While our elected leaders aren’t the smartest individuals, they certainly aren’t totally stupid and aren’t going to be wasting tax money on stuff that plain won’t work at the moment.

And to Em, I’m 25.