We received an invitation from the energy company Segen to visit a wind turbine that has been installed near us. I was particularly interested to see it and get some practical information, with the idea that perhaps we could have a turbine in the clearing at the top of our wood, if it were on […]
A full year after we first enquired about getting a wind turbine for Hedgerley Wood from Windsave the man finally arrived to survey the site.
His first conclusion was that there was no way we would get enough wind speed, given how the house is surrounded by trees. He said that the predominent wind direction in […]
Has anyone thought of putting medium size wind turbines on electricity pylons?
Obvious advantages:
- the most expensive bit is already there
- objections to the tower being there can’t be raised
- the wiring could presumably be easily be modified to move the electricity.
Disadvantage:
- could only carry medium sized turbines because of the strength of the towers and […]
I was discussing with Franny whether it was practical to think of building a wind turbine at the top of the wood in Hedgerley. The problem is that is would have to be really high to clear the trees - or we would have to clear a lot of trees, which we don’t want to […]
On Thursday evening invited by Polly and Boo to go to an Oxford meeting on the Green House organised by COIN (Climate Outreach and Information Network). So many people turned up that they had to take over a second hall and rotate the speakers.
COIN have an interesting carbon calculator. It doesn’t do the maths […]
Interesting piece in the Guardian about a new mini wind turbine made in Scotland by Windsave. It’s said to produce 1kW in a 12 m/s wind. In our case it would only contribute a little, but at only £750 it’s worth it if only to experiment with and offset a little of the increased electricity […]
This month’s Resurgence includes a new column on these issues written by Lorna Howarth. She refers to the Global Commons Institute (http://www.gci.org.uk/) and their notion of ‘Contraction and Convergence’. They have a much tougher calculation: that with a global population of 6 billion, the planet can only sustain 2 tonnes of emissions per person. That […]
I started at the British Wind Energy Association - www.bwea.com and supplemented this with some US-based information from Wind Energy Weekly - www.awea.org.
The basic wind story looks pretty promising. If an average house uses around 10,000 kWh a year, then a 5 - 15 kW turbine can made a sigficant contribution to this. A 10 […]