How to do it right.. invest in the future, energy independence, and more business all at the same time.

[cbelt3]

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index...._erec.html
"The largest wind turbine in Ohio and one of the largest in North America will soon spin high above Lincoln Electric's headquarters in Euclid."

- - -
$1m Federal stimulus (held over from 2009 after the EPA held up the project)
$500K of state funds.
$4M of investment by a Fortune 1000 corporation.

It doesn't take a bunch of greenpeacies to do what's right for the planet and energy independence. Just good business sense.

[Uncle Wig]

That is cool. Can't wait to see it in action. It could only be better if the turbine had been manufactured in the US.

[cbelt3]

Wig... US turbine manufacturers collapsed in the late 1990's when oil prices collapsed. There was a big consolidation at first, and then the last company standing collapsed.

[modelamac]

A lot more like this could be done.

Every cell phone tower could have its own wind turbine to supply the power it needs.

Every tower that has warning light for aircraft could also have wind turbines AND cell phone relay units.

The same could be added to every observation tower in national forests and parks.

If a tower is needed, make it multi-purpose and at least partially self-powered.

[mrbigstuff]

cbelt3 wrote:
Wig... US turbine manufacturers collapsed in the late 1990's when oil prices collapsed. There was a big consolidation at first, and then the last company standing collapsed.

c'mon!

you could have organized a brown-bag lunch around this - got a few of the welding machines together and a few coworkers and banged that out in a few weeks!

[cbelt3]

modelamac wrote:
A lot more like this could be done.
...

Uhm... read the article to get an idea of the size and weights and dimensions involved in the equipment. The stresses involved in wind generating equipment is very different from the stresses involved in antenna and so forth. I've seen weldments for wind generator towers. They look a lot like the weldments you see in a battleship turret.

Wind generator towers really are single purpose. You cannot 'hang' things off them without some serious engineering changes.

[Mac1337]

modelamac wrote:
A lot more like this could be done.

Every cell phone tower could have its own wind turbine to supply the power it needs.

Every tower that has warning light for aircraft could also have wind turbines AND cell phone relay units.

The same could be added to every observation tower in national forests and parks.

If a tower is needed, make it multi-purpose and at least partially self-powered.

This sort of stuff only happens in cartoons. How about putting up a "turbine" on the roof your car so it could power your radio?

[Acer]

I would not dismiss modelamac's suggestion out of hand.

We can have massive wind generators cranking megawatts...and we can have small task-oriented ones to power small needs that would not require battleship turrets. In a similar vein, small solar panels are springing up everywhere. Of course they're not going to work everywhere, but where they would work, why not?

[Mac1337]

Do you have any around your house?

[Acer]

Sounds like an opening for an industrious entrepreneur. I'm too busy living off government checks, but maybe you have time.