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Is Backyard Wind Power Worth It?
eldavojohn wonders: "In the October IEEE Spectrum magazine, I read an article on backyard windmills and their growing feasibility. With the lowest model's price tag, it's about $9,000 and lasts for around 100,000 kilowatt-hours (20 year life), which results in 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. Now, the article mentions that if the market takes off, that price will drop. However, I was wondering what price range the windmills would have to fall to (or the energy rates have to rise to) before I could consider this? Well, the price of the windmills in the article are out of my price range right now. I don't imagine many Americans have $8k-$11k laying around and the current month's rates for energy in my neighborhood are 2.2 cents/kWh for the first 800 kWh and 1.2 cents/kWh after. I was wondering what are your thoughts on being an early adopter of wind energy? Do you think that if enough people bought these windmills, the price per kWh could compete with the local power grid's? Will it ever?"
This is why we need law changes to prevent homeowners' associations from having so much power over individual properties. It's okay for them to require you to pay into a communal pool for maintenance of shared resources, but beyond that, your home is your castle, and no one should have the right to tell you what you can and cannot do to it, public health and safety laws notwithstanding.
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I think the problem stems from the fact that too many people view their now not only as a home, but also as a financial investment. They're worried that if you paint your garage door flourescent green, then you will bring down the value of their house. I can see their point of view, but a house should not be there just to make money. Buy a house that you like, not one that you think will gain the most value in 3 years so you can sell it and upgrade.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Sure and we can use this type of thinking to our advantage too. Our home owners association already has stuff in place to keep the poor out. We have rules not particulaly faviorable to blacks unless they are the type who conform to the uncle tom versions of blackness. We have been able to keep the mexicans out and we are working on the jews and extreamly religous christians. I also think some rules are even hostile to foreigners. Of course it was hard to keep the irish and germans out because they adapt so easily but we got that covered too.
So yea, if you don't like it, leave. And we can justify all our positions based on property values and value to potential buyers willing to spend the most money.
Seriously, there are some things a little more important then value of investments. Other people's implied values shouldn't be used as reasoning for limiting someone elses freedoms.
(note, that was a fictional acount but i can easily see how inocent looking rules could work that way. thats the purpose of the home owners association, keeping undesirables out and property values high.)
I'm being mean here but there are deliberate blinders going on here, making the vendor, the IEEE spectrum writer and the Slashdot editor forget basic math. The vendor's motive, I understand, but there is no excluse for IEEE writers and slashdot people.
$9,000 for 100,000 khw over 20 years is NOT 9 cents/kwh. Why? Anybody with a mortgage knows that money paid over time is vastly different from money today. The unit presumably delivers 5,000 khw per year or about 13.7 khw per day. So at 7% interest, that's 16.7 cents/kwh, which is more than just round-off error.
And frankly, for the vendor to say it's 9 cents is very close to fraud. The power plants don't amortize without considering the time value of money when they work out the costs.
Another way to think about it. Put the $9,000 in the stock market. Historical rate of return is about 10%. That means you would pull out $900 per year -- while still keeping the principal intact, except for inflation. At California's 13 cents/khw from the grid, that buys you 6900khw, assuming the price stays even. Your wind turnbine gets you only 5000khw. It doesn't pay for itself in 20 years, it never, ever pays for itself, no matter how long it lasts. And you still have the principal when you are done.
I'm all for renewable energy. But I hate it when people also for renewable energy either get stupid or just plain lie to make it seem better than it is.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation