Everyone has seen pictures of wind turbines— those sleek, white, three-bladed giants, usually standing in a group in a green field. When you hear about wind turbines, unless those are specifically implied, that is not what should come to mind. They are noisy eyesores which, though producing renewble energy, take  a ton of energy to build. Also, it is not sustainable to have a whole field of them , spaced so widely apart so they have turning space. It comes to mind that they have similar problems to monoculture farming, for example: Monocultures (crops of only one plant) use up only the water and nutrients from a specific soil depth, and only the space from a specific height. Likewise, that type of fixed-height wind turbine uses only the space and the wind from a specific height.

There are many cutting edge wind technologies out there; most of them are silent, beautiful, able to be installed in an urban setting, and do not kill migratory bats and birds. The majority of these cost hundreds of dollars and can power a whole house.

Another option is making your own turbine, maybe even from recycled materials for that extra greenness. There are many places you can find instructions. MAKE: magazine, Instructables, and many more locations on the ‘net. Sometime I’m even going to post wind-turbine making instructions right here on the CAN website!

If you want to learn about the inner workings of wind turbines— ALL turbines, in fact, click here.