Dec 05 2008
Alternative Energy!
On days with decent wind – which occur frequently enough, since he can feel the breeze from Lake Michigan – the $16,000 Swift wind turbine can generate 1.5 kilowatts an hour, i.e., enough to power the average lightbulb for 15 hours.
Cost-benefit analysis, anyone? A commenter does the math:
Let’s see - the US uses 436,000,000 kilowatts every hour on average, so we could power the US with only 290 million of these wonderful devices. At $16,000 a pop, that’s only $4.65 trillion - only a third of US GNP!
And we’d feel so good about ourselves!
Indeed, we would. Save Mother Earth!
One response so far
Interesting. Let’s see, even on Lake Michigan, the annual load factor is going to be about 0.33. So, about 4376 Kwh per year. At $0.10 per Kwh, a benefit of about $438 per year. Hummm, 36-37 year pay-back. Service life is about 20 years. But, feeling superior, “priceless”.