Originally Posted by
locoyo386 
Is wind power more efficient than solar? How do figure wind is more cost effictive than solar? I would imagine that different parts of the state would benifit from different types of energy sources. In california, at lest were I live, I think that solar would be a better bet than wind. On the other hand, people in Chicago might benifit from wind more than solar. Not sure where you are, but here solar is not bad since we get alot of sun during the year.
I am not too familiar with wind towers but at what speeds do they start to generate electricity (at least enough to make them useful)? It would be cool to compare the two, as far as efficiency, reliability and cost.
Now im not a professional in this area by any means, but here in iowa we have wind farms and i know even with just a five mile per hour wind, the turbines are still spinning, when the turbines are spinning they are creating power, they actually have a system in place so that if winds hit 70 mph or more they apply breaks to the turbines to slow them down 1. for safety concerns, and 2. the wiring they use can not handel that large of a load and would over heat causing fires. Now obviouly how much power they generate will depend on the speed they spin. The problem with wind power, or solar power for that matter, is we have no reasonable way to store this power. Yea you can charge huge battery banks in your basement, but do you really want to take up half of your basement to run power to your house ... no. Now if you had a personal wind generator you would need a large amout of wind to actually power your whole house, i mean the wind towers here are 300 foot high with 100 foot long blades, but im sure that a small wind generator that you put on the roof of your house AND are lucky like me and live in an area that winds under 20 mph then you could power 1/4 to 1/2 or at a bare minimum your whole aquarium.
