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?"

Comments

To avoid a few flamewars.

[UbuntuDupe]

1) No, on a purely financial basis, it probably isn't worth it. (Saves the posts of people doing a detailed analysis.)

2) Yes, it has the non-financial benefit of being earth-friendly, which isn't necessarily captured in a financial analysis. (Saves people from lecturing others that money isn't everything.)

3) Yes, it would probably save you money if the appropriate goods were taxed to reflect their environmental costs. What the appropriate externality compensation would be depends on your ideology, so if you wanted people to use less fuel anyway, you probably think these costs are HUGE.

4) Yes, we know that alone, windmills won't solve all energy problems. No one thinks that.

5) Yes, some birds are killed from these. No one cares, since tall buildings kill a lot more.

Does that about cover it?

Re:Solar panels

[demigod]

A windmill is too big and too much of an eyesore to be installed in backyards.

They don't have to be eyesores.