Ethical Power Usage: Wind Between Your Blades

Wind energy is the world's fastest growing source for power, and for those ethical consumers who have harnessed that power in their own homes with a residential wind turbine the benefits are many. Not only are those homeowners who have installed one of the smaller versions of the powerful wind turbines able to cut back their own amounts of toxic carbon emissions released into the environment, but they are doing well to same money on their energy bills too. While the monetary rewards should come in second behind Mother Earth, they aren't to be overlooked, especially in these tough economic times.


While there are plenty of ways to cut back on the amount of energy you use in your own home, a residential wind turbine can vastly decrease the amount you use. If you are lucky enough to be supplied by an electric company that has turned to renewable energy resources such as solar and wind instead of the more standard oil or coal, your ethical power usage may already be covered, but for the majority that has yet to be the case. Unfortunately the electric companies are slow to change their ways, and so it is with these wind turbines you can take your energy power supply into your own hands, or at least mostly.

While there aren't any residential wind turbines that can completely replace your electrical company simply because they need at least a minimum amount of wind to generate energy, usually at least 5 to 7 mph of wind speed, you will have to supplement with an eclectic company. But depending on how much of those blustery winds your region receives you can cut back your bill anywhere from 50 to 90 percent! That's quite a savings of both money and greenhouse emissions. In fact, just a single residential wind turbine can counteract the emissions of 1.5 cars annually; when that is carried out to the 55 to 60 MW of energy created to supply 7,000 homes that works out to 10,000 cars and working against 60,000 tons of carbon gas emissions! Thankfully from 2007 to 2008 the amount of small wind power usage jumped up 53 percent with 19,000 units sold.

Well unfortunately, not everyone can harvest the wind from their homes just yet. Although wind technology is definitely working towards that end, many of these devices are between 10 and 20 feet tall, about 4 feet wide, and need about one acre of land to fit correctly. So that means for those living in more urban and suburban areas they may not fit and could garner you a few complaints from the neighborhood committee! But, there are now smaller models coming out that attach to the roof of your house and are smaller. So perhaps in time we can all be more ethical consumers with wind energy if those darned electrical companies don't hop to it and offer it to us first.