Man has harnessed the FREE power of the wind for thousands of years via sails on a sailing ship, and for now the wind is still free therefore why are we not harnessing the power of the wind more?
We have giant coal fired power stations spewing great quantities of carbon into the atmosphere and nuclear power plants that have the potential to spew who knows what into the atmosphere, and yet we as a society go along with this. The general public can see the folly in this, but still allow big corporations and the politicians that receive campaign donations from these large corporations to continue to operate these monsters.
Why not harness the power of the wind to generate power, after all the wind has been around since the beginning of time and will continue until the end of time. That is more than can be said for the non-renewable energy sources that we are now using up at an alarming rate.
The problem up until recent times has been that renewable energy has been expensive to produce, but with the rising cost of fuel oil and gas, renewable energy is becoming a viable alternative now. Also more research is being done to help reduce the cost of renewable energy.
What most people don't realize is that a wind powered generator can be produced very cheaply by a person that possesses a few home handyman skills. So if a person can generate power from a windmill cheaply and the energy to drive it is free, gee even a politician should be able to understand the benefit that provides to society. I am sure there will be a committee set up to determine how government can tax the people for wind power.
A single wind turbine is probably not going allow you to disconnect from the power grid, but if you generate part of the power that you use for free, then you are not only helping the environment but also your finances. There is always the option of building more than one turbine or maybe a bigger turbine to generate most if not all of the power that you need.
I am sure that you are like me and worry that during the last 100 years (which is such a small part of history) we have decided to use all this non renewable energy, with not much thought for the next 100, 200, 500 years, yet most of us have literally on our doorstep a renewable source of energy - lets use it.