Re: In defense of the Chevrolet Vega

I was thinking commerical power generation, not residential. I don't know of a single residential system that will pay back its initial costs within the life of the equipment*. It's not about money to put those in IMO rather it's about 'living off the grid' or environmental smug.

*in areas where people can sell the excess power back to the grid they might have a shot. might.

You always have the nukes and they can generate friendly electricity and you do not put the nukes directly in the car as far as I know.

There is also a hell of a lot of coal and tar sand you can tap the electricity out of but not put the coal directly in the car so electricity much be an interesting slution.

Smokey Yunick had a windmill at his Daytona Beach shop.The city made him take it down. cuhulin

So with a large enough installation you can lose the same amount per KwH and make it up in volume?

no. simply the cost savings from the scale of the wind generation equipment. Same reason people don't put in their own 1 house sized gas turbine systems, mini-fission nuke generation, or small 1 house hydro electric projects.

I did read some years ago someone had developed a natural gas turbine generation system that was economically feasible for 12 homes per generator or so.

I have a small wind turbine, solarpanel and water turbine. They save me a lot of money. I could possible sell overproduction to the grid but it is too much paperwork. I am attached to the grid but usually do not need it. The equipment for home use is cheap and has paid itself off a long time ago. Hardly any maintenance and not for many years now.

When I moved to Houston in the mid 60's, my apartment complex had a cogen system, burning natural gas to provide electricity, cooling etc. It was apparently the cheapest way to go.

For a single house, a gas or diesel powered generator might, or might not, make sense. Members of my family own a neat bit of acreage in Colorado, where there is no power available. To bring in an electric line would cost millions. Clearly in this extreme case, a wind generator, solar panels, or a propane or diesel generator would be the choices.

Whether you get enough bang for your buck in Los Angeles, however, would be a different study

Look on the web for, Fiat home power system I think it was back in the 1970's, 1980's when I read about it in a magazine. cuhulin

Define "cheap"? A residential solar system is around $20,000, a small wind system from what I can tell is around $12,000 (system costs, not just the primary generation components, and there may be cheaper ways than just ordering a complete system as well). At typical US electric rates and present taxes the paypack for these systems is pretty long.

Home made wind mills/wind power. How about a motorcycle rear wheel, chain drive (or a spider hub drive) to an alternator? Vanes can be made and mounted on the wheel, and a home made tower to get it up high enough.Some people do homebrew their own. cuhulin

There was a retired turbine engineer guy who retired from a company that manufactured turbines, in Milwaukee, or somewhere around there.He built a windmill on the shore of Lake Michigan, near his house.He insulated the tower and he had free heat going to his house.The turbine gears generated friction/heat inside the enclosure around the gears.

Motorcycle Wheel Windmill Generator Some home made windmills use bicycle wheels. cuhulin

"hls" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Generator-driving windmills used to be common in rural areas that were unserved by the grid. Now such windmills aerate ponds instead.