Say What!?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/magwind_vertica.php

This turbine appears to solve several key issues with homeowners running wind turbines, noise, size, and complexity.  It looks kinda cool too!

I firmly believe that it will be a combination of renewable resources that will break our world’s dependence on fossil fuels.  I think that it will be many generations before there is no fossil fuel usage on our planet.  In several generations (2-3) the concept or distributed power production will be the norm.  The politics and economic infrastructure will take some time to build.

Who knows, maybe someday we can all be like Michael Strizsk. Consider a standard home with a roof shingled with photo-voltaics. The roof is storing energy in both batteries and hydrogen form. Add to this a powerful consumer based wind turbine and you have a pretty solid solution. Michael Strizki of East Amwell, New Jersey has eliminated his utility bill in such a manner.  The biggest issue currently is economic feasibility. However, if you can make enough power to sell it back to the electric company, that’s got to help. Strizki’s solution is a prototype, so costs will be coming down once things get worked out.

I’ve just read, The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin.  Although the first half (if not more) goes into the history of oil (the fix we’re in), it’s really necessary to provide a good perspective on just how integrated into civilization oil is.  In fact it DEFINES the very core of our “civilized” world.  So, when a bunch of treehugger yahoos talk about decentralized power, their talking about collapsing the skeleton which supports much of the world’s economies.  Backing out of that gargantuan dead end is going to be a massive undertaking.  Rifkin offers a solution, a trajectory which is built around solar, wind, and hydrogen. He doesn’t have all of the answers, but he provides a plan.  It’s up to the rest of the political, and technical geniuses to fill in the details.