Another Off-Grid Power Solution
15 04 2008
Photo by willie2808
The New York Times reported today that, in addition to the convenient portable solar-panels I wrote about last, personal wind-turbines are not far over the horizon.
They report:
Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects.
I don’t know how comfortable I’d be owning and operating my own wind-turbine in the backyard, but it’s pretty cool to see a renewed emphasis on self-sufficient home elctricity. Even if it’s not your dream to work over the internet from a remote, desert island, I’m sure that current gas prices and rolling blackouts have illustrated to everyone the value of energy independence, even if it’s a luxury for now.
What’s cool is that this article, and the product I detailed yesterday, are beginning to show a big change in the industry, and hopefully in the public’s percetptions of it. The article detailed:
“Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas,” said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. “Now, it’s a lot more mainstream.”
Indeed. However, even if I was a hippie and/or redneck, I would appreciate the convenience and efficiency that are being built into these new machines.
Do I think that the power companies will willingly cede their control of the grid (and, therefore, livelihood) to a bunch of independent techno-geeks? No, but then again, I hope I can count myself among a lucky generation that gets to have a choice. Even if home solar-panels or wind-turbins aren’t for everybody, having them cheap, easy-to-use and readily-available will change the energy market in this country as we know it.
When cable television was first conceived, it was laughed at by those in the media elite. That’s because the media elite were based and broadcast in large cities like New York and Los Angeles where there was no difficulty transmitting a strong, high-quality signal to the masses. However, cable opened up the airwaves to the common American, living in the “flyover states” between the coasts. Just ask HBO, MTV, USA and the other cable juggernats if they ever would have had such monumental success by just appealing to the small sector of the public living in urban America.
The real significance with this portable power, as with cable TV back in The Day, is that by appealing to those people who live furthest from the sources of power, these innovations will not only offer them an affordable alternative, but in many places a degree of quality and convenience that they have never known. Transmitting electricity over long distances is certainly easier than television signals, but that doesn’t change the simple economics, or factor in those states’ penchant for independent living anyhow.
These new-power manufacturers must be banking that the silent majority living in the middle of the country will make their voice heard again, not with their masses, but with their wallets.
