5/04/2008

More on Kilowatts

After reading all the story and the comments in the BIT on Friday about the cost of electricity here on BI, I just had to drop in with this short observation.
The last time we had a full blown "energy crisis" here in the US, back in the 70's, we, Verna and I, decided after a lot of digging and homework to put up the WECS that still stands in our yard. Over the intervening 27 years this thing, and it's previous incarnation, the Jacobs windmill, has provided this house with a few HUNDRED THOUSAND kilowatts of energy! I have managed to actually lose the book that I recorded weekly totals in for 19 of those years, so I have no written records to fall back on, but the above estimate is a pretty fair one.

Just since the new inverter with all sorts of new innovations was installed in the winter, we have produced over 1800 KW's! For the month just past the total was 501 kws! That was enough to TOTALLY cover our usage from BIPCO if it had all been directly applied to our appliances. But as we are not a "stand alone" system, some of it goes back to the power company, and some we use directly.

Now the investment 27 years ago was a lot less than it would be now, but wind energy IS NOW AND ALWAYS WILL BE, a viable adjunct to power generation and usage here on BI. I don't give a rats ass what all the EXPERTS say, it is a workable technology! I think 27 years of daily contact with the technology should lend SOME credence to that statement.

So somewhere down the line, and in the not to distant future, a lot of people are going to have to give up their tightly held views of "view sheds" in order to be able to,"view-their-sheds" in the dark of night! I thought the comment by Kay Lewis was a very telling one. They are the people who would have an unrestricted view of those proposed WECS were they to become reality. They, apparently, unlike most of us, have open minds able to assess the future and its needs, and don't let personal feelings cloud and distort those ideas.

But while waiting for those gigantic ones to appear and a cable from them to be diverted to BI, (Yeah, RIGHT!!), what to do? If I was just coming to the realization that I needed to do SOMETHING, I would get in contact with the Bergy company out in Norman Oklahoma and see what models of WECS they have for sale. Then I would "hie me hence" to the Town Council and work on them to lift the STUPID RESTRICTIONS that were put in place by a previous council! Even "they" had to know that this day was coming, and here it is! Without much doubt in this feeble mind, I believe this little imbroglio is going to last a lot longer than the last one!

So in order to relieve the burden on your pocket book, don't be waiting for some pie in the sky innovation like wave generation and BIG MILLS to appear and save us all from 'Those Arabic Devils', take some of those pennies and cover the roof of your house with the new generation of solar panels and get ANY SIZED wind generator you can afford and start doing something with some sort of reality attached to it! TIFN