Just a quickie to invite you into a little brain exercise that I'm currently engaged in. I'm finding it useful and thought provoking. Maybe you will too. It has to do with researching what kind of sustainable energy resources that not only I can bring to my household, but that cities, and townships and whole counties can begin to consider to bring into their infrastructures ... right now!
My evening sitting in my living room, thinking about what a pole in the back of my yard would look like with a wind turbine creaking out the Kwhs into a storage battery in my basement began by stumbling across an article posted at MLive. MLive is a pretty popular Michigan News website. This is a great article.
It's from Chris Schilling, and co-writer Sarah Rigg. These two basically sat down and did a quick calculation on how many wind turbines it would take, in this case in Saginaw County, Michigan to accommodate every man, woman and child for normal daily household electrical usage.
The equations are done using the formulas presented in a book written by Cambridge University Physics Professor, David McKay. The book is called Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air. And here's some BONUS cool! McKay is so excited to have folks read his book, he's actually put the full, 48Mb Pdf file on the internet for you to download, read and keep absolutely free (November 2003 UIT Cambridge Ltd Publications)! Kinda cool, huh?
So anyway, back to Schilling.
In this article, I wish to present one of Dr. MacKay's lessons on wind energy. The lesson answers two questions:
- What are the physical limits to the supply of wind energy in my town; and
- is that supply big enough to meet local electric demand? In other words, given the average wind speed, how many windmills of which size are needed to satisfy my town's electricity demand?
The example provided in this article focuses on Saginaw county. The reader can apply the same math to any county, any township, or any state for that matter. The results are surprising.
He then goes on to present the actual forumla McKay uses to determine wind turbine feasibility, and summarizes thus:
The total number of windmills needed to supply every resident is calculated from the equation G = AH / D, where A is again the electric power demand (10 kWh per person per day) and H is the population of Saginaw county (202,268). Substituting these numbers, G = 290 wind turbines.
Now it's easy to do the math and see how many of these you'd have to erect every so many meters to put the fear o' God in Detroit Edison, Consumers Energy, or whoever the electric Plantation Owners are in YOUR town.
So have fun with it. Check out a few of the residential wind turbine makers in your area for pricing and models. They're pretty easy to track down these days. It's just a matter of what the ordinances are where you live, and whether you live in a nice windy spot, or something that would be more suitable for a solar existence.
If nothing else, David McKay's book is great reading. Because I'm sure we're going to be having more of these conversations in the future as homeowners, as Americans, as gatekeepers to the new age of energy.
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