Community Turbine

[Chickpea]

Was it Andy who was wondering out loud if it would be possible for all the people in a neighbourhood to jointly buy a big wind turbine? Sounds like one of Andy's schemes anyway, it goes so well with the "shares in an organic cow" plan.

Anyway I just saw an item on the BBC news website about some people who did just that (the wind turbine thing, not the timeshare cow) and it was so successful they've just built another one. Not a word in the item about the local outcry either, which usually goes with wind turbine stories.

[Martin]

got to be one of the very best ways of generating electricity - it puts the source close to where it's going to be used, and it's a wonderful way of building and strengthening communities!

[Martin]

pssst, I can do you a very nifty 750kw turbine, complete with tower, for a knock down price of £395,000! - please allow 12 weeks for delivery!
Quick back-of -the -envelope calculations suggest you'd have paid back the entire cost in 4-5 years, and that's at today's electricity prices - the way they are going, probably 4 years!
Seriously, "wind" is extremely attractive in financial terms when you go big!

[Martin]

carrying on down the envelope-
that should produce around 3000kw/hours per day - £300 worth!
So, if the average family daily power consumption is around 10kw/h - it should "balance" the consumption of up to 300 homes - around £1500 per household should cover it................

[Martin]

which is infinitely preferable to several chocolate teapots!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4188945601

[Martin]

and these are the nice people who are doing it already!
http://www.energy4all.co.uk/