Small Wind: Could Residential Turbines Help Us Wean Off Fossil Fuels? M. Simon, Portland, ME
Wind power will likely play a key role in the transition to a zero-emission economy especially if we can start to distribute it more widely and harness its benefits on a building-by-building basis. Could your own small wind turbine next to your home be the next way to keep up with the Joneses while augmenting the electricity you already get from the grid or solar panels?
The short answer is…definitely. Large wind turbines lined up along the highway in commercial wind farms typically stand at least 150 feet tall, each powering thousands of households per year. But smaller, much less obtrusive turbines might output just enough power to serve as a back-up to your existing solar system or reduce what you need from the grid. Limitations on how much electricity a turbine can extract as well as the variability of the wind itself means that wind power might never be your primary energy source.
Commentary: EarthTalk by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss - Hydrogen cars left waiting in wings
Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss
April 23, 2021
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What’s the latest on hydrogen powered fuel cells? Not long ago they were touted as the energy source of the future, but news has been scant of late.
Indeed, around the turn of the millennium, the development of hydrogen fuel cells to power our transportation sector with renewable, non-polluting power was all the rage among environmentalists and techies alike. Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen via an electrochemical reaction to make electricity, with water as the only “exhaust.” The first crude fuel cells were invented in England in the 1830s, but the technology really gained momentum in the 1960s when NASA developed them for the space program.