Cheap Savonius Wind Turbine

[120mm]

I think I will do this with my 17 year old daughter this summer as a project.

[Surferbeetle]

120mm,

Here is a kit that may be of interest. There are also plans out on the internet and Edmunds has some rare earth magnets that you will need. Keep them away from your electronics and watch your fingers though...

[Surferbeetle]

From the July 7th 2008 ENR

The U.S. is the second-largest wind-energy market and is posted to overtake Germany by the end of next year, according to the Brussels, Belgium-based Global Wind Energy Council

Engineering News Record notes in this article that the US had 15,616 installed MW of wind power in 2007.

A gigawatt equals a thousand megawatts (MW).

As reference points the EIA notes that Iraq had a 3.8 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#76 world ranking in this arena), Germany had a 120.4 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#6 world ranking in this arena) and that the US had a 956.7 gigawatt capacity in a June 2008 update (#1 world ranking in this arena).


From the July 7th 2008 Business Week

Wind power, while still just a speck in America's total energy mix, is no longer some fantasy of the Birkenstock set. In the U.S., more than 25,000 turbines produce 17 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, enough to power 4.5 million homes. Total capacity rose 45% last year and is forecast to nearly triple by 2012. Right now, only 1% of the country's electricity comes from wind, but government and industry leaders want to see that share hit 20% by 2030, both to boost the supply of carbon-free energy and to create green-collar jobs.

Such a transformation won't come easily. While much of America's wind energy is in the Midwest, demand for electricity is on the coasts. And the electrical grid, designed decades ago, can't move large quantities of electricity thousands of miles. There's plenty of wind off the coasts, but it's both expensive to harness and controversial; not-in-my-backyard sentiment has slowed some of the most high-profile projects

It costs roughly $225 million to build a 150-megawatt wind plant. Horizon, the big wind developer, has 11,000 megawatts of projects in the works...

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on electric power transmission

[goesh]

This is good stuff - lets not forget solar cooking boxes either , essentially a box lined with tin foil set in the sun - the literature says they really work. 3rd world women spend alot of time scrounging fire wood and alot of trees are taken down too. a couple hours away from scrounging fire wood = a bigger garden and more food for the family.

[J Wolfsberger]

This is pretty cool. It's also cheap enough they could build a series-parallel array and generate some respectable voltage and current.

Along those lines, here's a link for a scratch built solar power system: How To Build a Solar Generator

[jcustis]

This is good stuff - lets not forget solar cooking boxes either , essentially a box lined with tin foil set in the sun - the literature says they really work. 3rd world women spend alot of time scrounging fire wood and alot of trees are taken down too. a couple hours away from scrounging fire wood = a bigger garden and more food for the family.

Does anyone have more information related to this solar cooking box?

[davidbfpo]

Jon,

Not solar boxes, although I have read something about them; uodate, the BBC had this 2009 item: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7991654.stm.

Try this UK-based alternative technology charity: www.PracticalAction.org

I think they are the leaders in the field of low-tech answers.

[Dayuhan]

I worked with solar cookers once upon a time and it was difficult to get people to adopt. There's a huge cultural conservatism attached to cooking ad food; it's hard to get people to use different cooking techniques. I suppose that would vary according to the existing cooking culture and scarcity of fuel in any given environment.

This one really works:

http://www.fogquest.org/

Not the single sole solution for everywhere (nothing is) but where conditions are right it's brilliant.

This one:

http://www.biosandfilter.org/biosandfilter/

is another really useful water technology with potential for application in disaster relief or refugee situations. I've built some of these, it's not hard to do and people catch on really fast; they actually get used. That's key... if you track down glorious appropriate tech projects a few years later, a distressingly large number have been discarded.

I admit to a bias toward water supply as an intervention point: it's basic, it's obvious, the payoff is immediate and dramatic, and people get it... if Nelson would have had "want of frigates" stamped on his heart in the event of his demise, anyone who's been in the relief business would have "want of clean water" stamped on theirs. The combination of cheap wind or solar power, batteries, and LED lights is pretty cool, though...