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General discussion

Wind Power generator

Feb 3, 2010 10:29AM PST

It's a tall tower, if I recall 110ft.. As seen from the road when I took the picture. That's at least 200yds away. I'm sorry the picture seems small but in real life its bigger for sure. Use your zoom to get a better view. I hope to visit the neighbor and get up close and provide more solid details. For now, this is it. BTW, it the biggest wind generator around that I've noticed. Importantly, he's not the only one. adios -----Willy

link: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j116/b1reyna/Willy/

Discussion is locked

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Looks are deceiving
Feb 3, 2010 6:38PM PST

I can't tell if that one is as big as these

http://www.earlparkindiana.com/windfarm.html

That were one of several wind farms we passed near while traveling back from Algonquin, Ill. to Ohio last year. We took the more rural routes to avoid Chicago. Down Rt. 47 in Ill., we saw wind farm under construction such as these pictured and it was quite a site. We passed by the pictured ones while heading into Indiana where we picked up I-65 south toward Indy. Along I-65 north of West Lafayette, we saw another. We'd taken this route several times over the past 5 or so years and not noticed these structures so they must have sprung up fairly recently. Strangely, very few that we saw were actually turning and those that were ran very slowly. As a kid, I remember farms with their own windmill structures that I guess were used for grist and such. So, you made hay when the sun would shine and flour when the winds blew.

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I'm not sure what you mean by 'slow'
Feb 3, 2010 7:06PM PST
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By slow, I mean that movement was barely detectable
Feb 3, 2010 8:52PM PST

Most of those we saw that day were still but a very few appeared to move but you'd need to watch for several seconds to see any change at all. I've read that the velocity at the tips can run 300mph but not knowing the full radius I can't calculate RPM at that speed. Apparently these things have an internal braking system of some sort as well. The windmill farms were quite a site and I never imagined them to be the size they were...monstrous in comparison to what one imagines when thinking of windmills they'd already seen in use for mechanical power.

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In general...
Feb 5, 2010 10:45AM PST

I don't think my neighbor's windmill is anything compared to industrial or commercial ones that have sprung up. I'm trying to imply that for a privately owned one, its big. Further, I did see the one at the Owens CC that also offers classes for alternative energy training and that's pretty recent. What gets me is the benefit it seems that larger business haven't gotten into this yet. At least no news of such locally. -----Willy

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I do see solar powered panelled devices along
Feb 5, 2010 7:07PM PST

the highways. Some seem to have either small wind power generators or wind speed indicators but not sure what these are for. I do see an occasional windmill such as you've pictured in other areas of Ohio that are on farm property and I have to wonder if they were put up by the farm owners or allowed to be erected for experimental/evaluation purposes. I'm not sold on wind power as being large and long term supplier of energy using windmills, however. I'd have to think it takes plenty of space and a long time to get payback from such investments and that maintenance/replacement eat into their savings value.

I remember my grandmother having a solar and wind powered clothes dryer consisting of about 100' of cotton rope and a couple of pulleys but, just like windmills, some days hers didn't work well. Happy

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Highway use...
Feb 6, 2010 1:58AM PST

Some highway signs are powered now in order to be blinking "STOP"(LEDs), far more effective or attention getters. These are solar powered and when thinking they don't tap into the grid and for sure some are out of way places or high traffic that warrant they're use. As for some small windmill types, the ones I've seen power the small weather gathering post to transmit data back to the main center. Also, I see some traffic pedestrian lights are solar powered too. Its starting to make headway, I'm sure because they save on operating costs. -----Willy Happy