Personal wind turbines not worth the bother?

New research shows that personal wind turbines are actually not that great for the environment after all with some actually contributing to climate change rather than helping to fight it.

Many consumers buy wind turbines for their homes to help save on electricity costs as well as helping fight global warming. However, wind turbines are costly pieces of equipment and the Building Research Establishment Trust has found that most of these wind turbines never save as much money as they cost in the first place.

With many wind turbines being made of plastic, some of them will never pay back their carbon emissions either – they emit more carbon emissions in their manufacture than they will save in their lifetime.

Naturally, the efficiency of the wind turbine depends greatly on where they are located and there are large variations in the CO2 payback periods and energy saving measures dependent on how windy the location is.

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  1. AlienFarmer | Dec 11, 2007 | Reply

    I am pretty sure solar panels are cheaper than wind turbines now. I just saw a complete solar system (3000 kw) for sale for 16 grand. With google getting into the solar game prices should drop even further in the near future.

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