I found a wind energy calculator to help you assess whether or not to install a turbine on your property, based on a Canadian wind atlas, plus lots of other stuff. I plugged in my postal code, and found out that my region rates as "Good" (a 3 on a six point scale). Fantastic! I'd love some free power. So, what exactly does "good" mean?
Based on my consumption, in my postal code, the calculator recommended 4 1kW generators, each on a 19m pole. Neighbors are gonna love that. But hey, maybe they like green power too, and won't be concerned by the bird kill.
Installation cost, including hardware and labor, is estimated at $25k. More than I have in my wallet, but that's okay, maybe we can finance it. It takes money to make money, and the power is free, right? So what the ROI, or, in terms the efficiency types like, the payback on that puppy? The calculator knows how much power costs here, so it can work all that out.
The answer is (drumroll please): 91 years. No typo, ninety-one. I'll be dead, and probably my kids too, and no doubt my house will have been gone for decades before it pays off. Oh yeah, not to mention the turbine itself, which has only a 25 year life expectancy.
Unless, of course, you include financing costs. Or required maintainence and overhauls. Maintenence and overhauls, by itself, costs twice as much as the power its generating. Even if the system were entirely free, and sitting in my backyard tomorrow, it couldn't pay for its own maintenance!
So this is what it's like to live in a "good" spot for wind power. I'd hate to see the numbers for "mediocre".
Get a plot for your next novel, or hack it up as a perl script and hope for fame.
The biggest risk to (class of entity) in (location) is due to (peril), and can only be avoided by (remedy).
Here are some lists to get you started on the first three. The remedies, I can't help you with.
{life | life on this planet | human life on this planet | endangered
species | human health and happiness | political stability |
business/economy | my job | my health }
{the Universe at large | this planet | my nation | my town | my
family | my head}
{war (conventional) | war (nuclear) | tribal strife | terrorism |
crime | corruption | resource exhaustion (oil) | resource exhaustion
(fossil fuel) | resource exhaustion (water) | resource exhaustion
(tantalum) | erosion | desertification | soil salinification | ocean
desalinification | climate change (global) | climate change (local) |
nuclear winter | fishery collapse | currency collapse | the
Republicans | the Democrats | the Internet | AI | nanotechnology run
amok | GM crops | BSE | avian flu | pollution (air) | pollution
(water) | religion | atheism | overpopulation | television | meteor
impact | extinctions of large predators | surfeits of large predators}