can i ask about other energy sources?

Hi
I respect everyones opinion on here and have heard some members talk of owning a wind generator.I have found one that may be to good to be true and was wondering if anyone has heard of it.
http://www.earth4energy.com/
its cheep and looks ok but im just not sure.Anybody heard of it or have any experience with it
Thanks
Keith

It's not coal generated? Blasphemy!

Feel free to discuss just about anything on this forum. I'd even open up some more forums forums in the future for specific types if there is enough interest. Freddy has a windmill but i believe he doesn't have enough wind.

Hi Tugcapt,

Read the earth4energy article you posted. It looks to me to be a very professionally made advertisment. Lots of hype and no particulars. for an example the add doesn't tell you how much energy you can get out of a unit for the supposedly $200 price weather it's wind or solar. The picture it shows of a windmill would not put out enough power to run any applaince you have. Ask freddy about his wind turbine.

I have a one watt solar panel and it cost about 40 or 50 bucks and it doesn't power anything. I got it to do some experimenting on my own. What I've learned about solar panels over the years is 1. they are only about 10 to 15 % efficent, 2. they are made of semiconductor materials ( expensive), 3. you need a lot of them to generate enough power to do any real work, 4. you need a lot of sun shine ( realistically not enough in the north east ).
If you can find a Jan. 08 issue of scientific America, there is a very interesting article on solar energy for the whole country. That looked very do-able to me.

Having said all this i would love to see solar power succeed cuz it would be a great clean sourse of energy. As one engineer from a solar manufacture company told me, they are at a point where they need a real break-thru on their efficiency.

This is my very unprofessional opinion.

Ohhhh, the secrets this man must have! I can't wait to part with $200 to learn what he knows. Oh, wait, I'll wait for you to part with your money & then you'll realize that we are so friendly here you'll want to come back & tell us all.... or at least offer the secrets to us for $100.

OK, enough sarcasm. I can save you $200. Obviously his only secret is to tell you that if you look long enough & scrounge hard enough you can find stuff for free. If you're truly interested, use your money to buy some legitimate books. You can find batteries that still have life left in them, you can (occasionally) find solar panels for cheap that are broken or near the end of their life that can be made to work, and you can build your own wind generator for not too much money.


Hugh Piggot, inexpensive home made wind turbines: http://www.scoraigwind.com/

Breezy 5.5 (what I own) I have $7,500 in my machine and tower. It is a very capable machine, I just need more wind. My record day is 30 KWH. If it did that every day it would generate ALL my power. As it is it pays about 10% of my electric bill. Next yr, improvements to make it produce better in my location. (I'm #8 on the photo page) :

http://www.prairieturbines.com/pictures.htm

Lot's of good info: http://www.otherpower.com

List of good starter books: http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wi ... ml#reading


gotta go,,,someone here... mabe more later...

Back! Someone just dropped off a Kubota...nice! (wish it were mine to keep) Solar: If it made sense you'd see electric companies doing it. They tried some yrs back in CA. It failed as too expensive. You are seeing wind power electric come on line. It CAN make sense, but needs proper "fuel". I highly reccomend before you spend a pile of money on a windmill that you do a one year wind study at the height of your proposed tower. I hired a guy to do a study for me. I got poor information. He had all linds of fancy software & showed me how the topography & average winds were perfect! Then he tried to sell me a windmill. When I hired him I did not know he was a sales man. Ohhhh, well, my turbine is a wonderful hobby and now that it's here I still hope to get more out of it.I need to go higher and steel isn't cheap! I'll tell you, about the biggest thrill I've had in my life was the first time the tower went up. It lays full length on the ground & tilts up. Try putting 1,010 pounds on the end of a 60 foot stick and stand it up. Wooohooo! This year I'm hoping to change it to 80'.

I wonder if a windmill can run my Genuine Amish Mantle heater?

Steve Ciarcia, the founder of the Circuit Cellar magazine for computer applications has a large 12KW solar panel system in CT. His out of pocket costs, after deducting the government rebate was about $60,000. His system is fully described in the Dec. 2007, Jan. 2008 and Feb 2008 issues of Circuit Cellar. Here's a link the to the Jan. issue:
http://www.circuitcellar.com/archives/v ... index.html

You couldn't build the tower and platform for $200 if it has nay height at all. Freddy, how much did just the tower cost you? I would love to have win, and probably could if I could get above my 75 foot tall trees and then the 50 foot elevation where the wind comes from most of the year. That would mean I would need at least a tower of 100 feet by my calculations. How much is steel nowadays? Than the cost of running 8 - 10 guage copper to my electrical panel with a conversion box? $200 seems like a bunch of BS to me, and I am pretty much what you guys call a "greenie" who wants to explore alternative energy.

There's a house 10 miles from here that spent about 50 grand on solar electirc. I've followed their numbers for a couple of years now. The bottom line for them, after state and federal rebates, they are looking at a 53 year payback. After 20 yrs solar panels start putting out less power so that 53 yrs can grow. Hmmmmm, ya, OK. Read all the fine print on rebates, here in Maine a system MUST be installed by a liscensed person to qualify for a rebate.


My tower was about half the cost of the system, maybe a bit less than half. That includes the footings. Steel has gone up a bunch in the last two yrs. The steel pipe that cost me $10 a foot in now closer to $18, the cables that cost me $.85 a foot are now pushes $1.50. My system is 5,500 watt. If you dial a phone number & say "Sell me one this size and install it" you'll be looking at about $30,000.

To add 20 feet I'll need 20 feet of 6" schedule 40 pipe, a bunch of turnbuckles, and 350 feet of wire rope (cable). To add more than 20 feet I'd need new footings. THAT's where the money would be.

Used batteries.... go to a forklift place & start dealing. Some places replace batteries by the calander and some old ones are OK. They should sell you old ones a few cents above junk price. You can squeeze more life outof them for a while. My system has no batteries, I produce 220 V and connect directly to the grid.

If anyone wants to chat, PM & ask for my phone #. I'm glad to talk & answer questions if I know the answers!

Thanks for all the help.I asked the same questions on two wind related sites and didn't get back a fraction of the help I got back from this site.Love this site lol.I may never need another site for all my technical needs.Now all i need is a site that can help manage my finances lol
I think I have something coming up that a lot on here will enjoy.For the past week i have been lightering a coal ship in the Dlaware river and i know how much we all like pics. so i have been taking many.What catogory would they fit best?Gotta run time to sail
Keith

tugcapt wrote:Now all i need is a site that can help manage my finances

No problem! First send me all of your money. Once that's done we'll discuss the next step.

kootch88 wrote:and I am pretty much what you guys call a "greenie" who wants to explore alternative energy.

Nothing wrong with that as long as you approach it with some sensibility, I don't want to say Freddy got "taken" but you have to watch as this is big business nowadays and there's lots of people out there just looking to make money off you. There's many people and business's getting into this field because they see $$$ and those are the ones you do not want to deal with.

I have a Air-X wind gererator on my sail boat in Fla and in a average breeze it puts out 8 amps into the house batteries. With the inverter then I run microwave, coffee pot, tv, lites, ect . there are also little tow behind units that have a small propeller built on that when moving you drop it in the water and as you go along the prop turns the hi-output alternator. thru the tow "wire" your free electric comes up to the battery again. I would think one could set this type in a flowing stream or river and use the DC to Ac conversion . naturally as a back up for power outages.
new solar technology also is a great way to convert power. key is a good inverter and large quality battery.

All I know is that on a windy day the new amish clothes dryer I got for my wife works a whole lot better. The only trouble is too much wind & the clothes pins won`t hold.

kootch88 wrote: How much is steel nowadays?

The price of scrap steel has collapsed. I was getting $.22 per pound by the tractor trailer load this Summer, now they are paying about a nickle. "New" steel is coming down much more slowly as the supply chain pipeline of higher priced material must be sold first in a very slow market. If it were me, I would wait until Spring to build a tower.

Coalmeister, I know scrap has dropped like a rock and copper has come way down too, but the $200 figure to build a viable tower is unreasonable unless the tower is for a small sailboat, and even then it isn't any good becuase you have to use stainless, aluminium or titanium on a boat! The whole concept of producing power for $200 bucks is ridiculous, or a scam.