?

I think I wish I had about 100 of them so I could get some royalties. Unfortunately I don’t have any tall plateaus that are suitable.

Wind turbines that generate electricity! Doggone, what will modern science come up with next? Hmmm Would it surprise you to know that up until about 60 years ago wind turbines were busy all over West Texas rural areas spinning out kilowatts?

We did not call them wind turbines in those days. The proper term on West Texas farms was Wind Chargers.

Recall that rural West Texas did not have commercial electricity until 1948, when REA lit up the houses, powered water pumps for indoor plumbing, and even put lights into barns. Before that we used kerosene lamps for lighting, lanterns for work in the barn before daylight and drew water from cisterns by bucket.

From what I have read, Wind Chargers were more prevalent in the Mid-West than in Texas and put to more uses. From my observations in my part of West Texas it seems most were used almost exclusively to power radios, generally the battery powered Philco brand you sometime see in antique stores.

In the first place, the little Wind Chargers did not produce a lot of wattage output ... but enough to trickle-charge a bank of batteries. Now the two regular dry-cell batteries to power the radios did not last very long and were fairly expensive to replace. Some folks who chose to run the radio fairly often found it cost-effective to buy a Wind Charger and a couple of wet-cell car batteries to power the old Philco than keep buying dry cell batteries. The old time radios operated on direct current (DC.)

Some farmers and ranchers chose also to mount a Wind Charger on top of the barn to have electric lights for early morning work.

As for the house? I never saw Wind Charger wiring in a house. Farm folk had grown accustomed to kerosene lamps ... and I think were just a bit nervous about electricity.

(Even when REA provided power to rural homes, most often the farmers just had the houses wired with one drop light from the ceiling in each room, with no wall outlets. As they warmed up to the idea of electricity in the house they would put in socket adaptors on the drop light and run extension cords from that. That is funny when I think of it now.)

Back to Wind Chargers. Millions are in use in the world today ... you may not be aware but they are mounted on many Recreational Vehicles(RVs) and larger boats ... to trickle charge the batteries that power the living conveniences therein. More powerful Wind Chargers in Australia, New Zealand and other remote parts of the world, combine with diesel generators to provide all electric power.

Wind Chargers systems IMO have a place in today's home power schemes ... as a supplement to the main power supply. The wind is free, an investment is required to get started, but I think one could rather economically power a sizable portion of a modern house.

The investment would be for the generator assembly, a mast that could elevate the generator 15 feet or so above obstructions, a bank of deep-cycle batteries from Academy, an inverter box that would convert 12v DC to 120v or 220v AC, and a fuse box with 20amp breakers.

Better engineered components are available today that farmers 60-80 years ago did not have access to, otherwise your grandmamas could have enjoyed an all-electric home.

That is just some info to keep in the back of your mind in case an opportunity arises that it may be of possible benefit some day.

Why pay for electricity from someone else's Wind Turbine when you can have your own Wind Charger?

I think the same about wind turbines as I do about oil wells....I wish I had 1,000 of 'em.

My father-in-law is getting 8-10 of them on his land, paying about $500/turbine a month in rent!

Cha-ching!

[This message has been edited by Blacque Jacque Shallaque (edited 8/15/2006 3:17p).]

each?....

$500 per month in royalties from the electricity that is produced...

I have heard a lot of negatives and just wondered what folks living in and around them thought...

I know a family that feels like their home/ranch was destroyed when his neighbor put 29 400 foot tall turbines on his property.

quote:

---

$500 per month in royalties from the electricity that is produced...

---

500 per month per turbine or per 10 turbines?

quote:

---

I know a family that feels like their home/ranch was destroyed when his neighbor put 29 400 foot tall turbines on his property.

---

how does it destroy a neighbors property?

he bought some raw property 14 years ago and worked it, cleard it, fenced it, biult a new home on it, raising horses and a family out in the country with this beautiful scenery and night sky...

now he is surrounded by 400 foot tall turbines that make noise and have flashing lights at night and are a bit surreal looking...and, so, he feels that is life style...his use and enjoyment are gone...let alone the affect to his property values...

and, apparantly he has done some research...it is all an enron generated tax boondoggle that you and I pay for and produces virtually no electricity, has no effect on our use of foreign oil and is actually more polluting than traditional fossil fuel plants (the engineers will understand why) but we pay, as a society, huge bucks that don't go to any Texas business...it goes to florida and they think we are fairly stupid...no wind turbines in florida

[This message has been edited by themoonpie (edited 8/14/2006 8:25p).]

and, its per turbine...

and, the neighbor that put the turbines on his property...lives in Arlington.

moonpie

I've heard that said about them, that they are only economically viable because of a requirement that a utility company have xx% of its production from non fossil fuel sources. Without this they loose a bunch of credits or tax incentives that allow a utility to be a utility or something like that.

and there are regular tax credits available for wind energy too, recently extended by Congress.

It might be that the change in oil prices from the $20's might actually make them more economically feasible today than they were 3 years ago.

Significant economic boost to this part of the area though. I've got clients and buddies that have made a butt load of money building roads and fences, trucking supplies, pouring cement and selling vehicles to the turbine guys. Apartments are rented, wages paid.

The turbines are even kind of a tourist draw. I need to figure out a way to make money off that. . .

sorry, but his rights stop at the fence in my opinion...what if one of your friends neighbors didn't want the land cleared or turned into a horse ranch....his rights stop at the fence also

that seems real different than putting monster noisy wind turbines that are taller than the statue of liberty all along your fence line

here is something else that is interesting....every european country that utilized wind energy has put a moratorium on biulding new farms...it is a waste of money...so maybe your buds get rich biulding roads and such....but alot of people think it is a piss poor policy...bad for Texas and the USA...but I can see how it would infuse money into your area...they have to pay you something to get you to do it...

The turbines on my father-in-laws land are spaced thrughout what is now his cotton fields outside Roscoe. The turbines will cut into the acrege he is able to farm, but the income from the turbines will more than make up for it.

I am happy that he is making money...even if it is to the detriment of his neighbors, Texas and the USA.

Its just that we all are programmed differently.

Who put their wind turbines on his property? FPL? AEP? Seawest?

quote:

---

I am happy that he is making money...even if it is to the detriment of his neighbors, Texas and the USA

---

I don't understand that statement. Are this guy's neighbors the Kennedys? I know they promoted the wind power concept but then didn't want them off of their beautiful Cape Cod.

Usually these are on large tracts of land. I just am missing how this is a detriment.

IMHO....

from what I gather....because you can see them...

I think they look kinda cool, like modern art that produces money....they can put one in my front yard for 500 per month

It seems to me that the money derived from the turbines hardly justifies the damage they do to the million dollar views in West Texas. One of the last times I drove I-10 the turbines had just started to be erected. I thought to myself what a shame it was to see the landscape ruined. Luckily for myself I remember West Texas without them but it saddens me to know that they are there ruining the view. I would rather see a thick fossil fuel induced haze cover the landscape than have it dotted by turbines.

Personally I think that it is a temporary big government subsidized fad. Who will pay to have them disassembled once they stop making money?

Rndomtask...you have helped restore my faith in my fellow man.

Go look at what they did to the Buffalo Gap/Lake Abilene/Abilene State Park/Coronado's Camp area of Taylor County. It is heart breaking. And, none of those people that put turbines on their property are buying their electricity from "green mountain energy" or any other "green" electricity source. Its all about greed. When you ask them if they knew it was bad for Texas and the USA would they still do it? They answer yes.

Wind power is an enron enspired boondoggle that is stealing from the American taxpayer and endangering the furture of your children and grandchilddren and this Country.

Do you guys also have a problem with drilling rigs and jack pumps?

and power lines....and barbed wire fences....and highways...

no problem with drilling rigs and pump jacks...they acturally do something productive...no problem with barbed wire fences...no problem with traditional power lines...but the 1.1 billion that we (Texas) are having to spend to biuld power lines for wind turbines that operate at 10% capacity is plain stupid. Have to biuld the largest capacity power lines for the occasional times the turbines actually generate more electricity...by-the-way, all of your west texas electrical bills will be increasing soon and significantly to pay for these power lines.

I also think that when a mineral owner is done using the storage tanks and the seperator units he should remove them instead of letting them rot away.

Great article about this in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram on Saturday:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15314901.htm
It's a bit long, but very interesting and discusses some of the pros and the cons.

The biggest pro, and the reason why I'm a proponent of wind energy in West Texas, is the economic impact wind has had, and can have, on countless small towns. Not only the royalties that go to landowners, but the money spent during the construction and maintenance of the turbines, and the jobs created in the wind industry. Texas State Technical College is even starting a "Wind Energy Technician" program of study this year. If a kid from Stamford, Sweetwater, or Ballinger can work in the wind industry as a skilled technician and make solid wages, that's huge for the future of West Texas.

what a sharp guy ought to do, is to learn to build his own, or buy his own wind generators and cut out the middleman

there are some people in Colorado who built their own because they didn't have access to the power grid...they have a website that shows the basics of how to build it yourself

Here is another interesting article:

http://www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=WaywardWind

Print and read Jon Boone's article...



[This message has been edited by themoonpie (edited 8/20/2006 10:16p).]

ohh, the horrors of ddt...sure, that guy didn't have an agenda

yea your right...telling the truth...what an agenda.

the dude seemed like a huge leftist...and his two main points were...1)it makes noise and 2)it kills some bats

coming from someone who slept with a minneapolis-moline (a damn loud moter with no muffler) well motor running 100 yards from his bedroom window, you get used to the noise and it becomes comforting like ocean waves
...as far as the bats are concerned...who cares if they kill a few bats...

if they can provide clean electricity...great

the only valid reason in my mind not to support wind generated electricity is if it costs more to produce than it generates....even so, the use and implementation of these type of systems will allow us to make improvements in these systems so that they become more efficient

I guess you didn't read the whole article...its not clean energy...it is actually more polluting because the fossil fuel fired plants that back up the erratic rate of wind energy electricity production are having to ramp up and down...

I read about 6 pages and got tired of him going in circles and saying nothing...I did skim through the other pages, but saw nothing that caught my eye...

do you really believe that....that since sometimes the wind generators give us extra power, that when they don't the coal generators kick on and pollute more?....I'm no mushroom farmer, but I'm smelling the bull...

so, I guess that these plants never increase or decrease production without regard to wind generators....

the article did not point to any studies or real numbers of what the wind generators could provide, what they cost, what has been the increase in effeciency over time and what could we expect in the future....

when the second major point that he brings up is that it kills some birds and bats, it's a pretty good indicator that the guy is a leftist and that he is full of crap

since nuke plants are the least polluting of everything, would he support them? yeah, right...

I understand some of the points your making...killing a bat doesn't matter all that much (unless your the bat)...but I would encourage you to read the whole article...here is why I know its not crap. I had FPL make a bunch of claims to me and I investigated each and every one of them by talking with some of the best scientists in thier fileds...and talking with insiders in certain Texas government agencies who confirmed that these turbines reak havoc on the grid and are costing us huge dollars to biuld power lines etc...I have also talked with scientists/engineers that confirm the pollution aspects of the back up units...that doesn't even begin to take into account the polluting aspects of the biulding, transporting and erecting turbines. If the wind energy companies get their way, your entire area will be covered with 30,000 turbines...and the jobs are short term. AFter I did my 18 month investigation, I read this guy and another guy named Glen Scheede's articles and they matched my own independent research...google Scheede and look at some of his stuff...

My fear is that we as a Country are caught up in the biggest pork barrel scam ever. And, the fact that it was a Ken Lay/Enron inspired legislative program was the icing on the cake for me.

I know though that for may Big Country folks...being the "wind energy capitol of the USA" is a big thing...its just that the Europeans tried it and it doesn't work...its not cost effective and they wouldn't be doing it if it was being paid for by our tax dollars.