Some product information below;

The Swift turbine is mounted on an aluminum mast with a minimum blade-roof clearance of approximately 2 feet. It is usually mounted at the highest point of a roof, in a position which benefits from maximum prevailing wind, but it will work effectively in almost any location. The Swift is designed to be both aesthetically pleasing and quiet.

The Swift turbine mounting brackets incorporate a damping system, specifically designed to absorb a wide range of frequencies. The patented diffuser minimizes turbine noise by preventing noises at the blade tip. In addition, the five bladed design allows for a slower speed of rotation to further reduce noise, making the Swift Wind Turbine one of the quietest wind systems. Now you can have a quiet vibration free energy generated right from your rooftop.

Swift Wind Turbine will be manufactured by Cascade Engineering in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Cascade Engineering will be manufacturing all blades worldwide and will do assembly for all turbines sold in the United States.

I would double the investment below and create 1M jobs and not limit it to high school or other students.

Obama is ready to spend all the money from the war on new programs, whether it is 30 billion to bail out mortgage holders, health care, federal education dollars and Hillary will freeze rates and stop foreclosures for 90 days and then spend it on healthcare.  I appreciate that this is a campaign and people will say just about anything to people in pain.  The bigger picture is, we mess with the middle east because of oil, we should invest our hard earned money into ways to eliminate this dependency.

One way would be a summer program to drive conservation.  For how many years have you receive promotional materials from your electrical company to use lower use lighting, low flow shower heads etc..  There are probably tax dollars behind this if I were to look into it, but there is an incentive for the electrical company, it is called peak demand.  They can’t meet peak demand.  Their infrastructure is crumbling, we will not let them build any new plants, coal, nuclear, whatever, they need ways to reduce usage.  Well maybe we can help them.

Hire 500,000 high school and college students during the summer.  Provide them with all the materials, such as low usage lighting, window sealants, shower heads, a long list of materials.  Go from house to house and replace these units.  How much would this cost ?  500,000 x $10/hr x 40 hrs x 12 weeks = $2,400M, plus materials, guess of another 2,500M, plus management, coordination and Marketing of 500M. Program costs of just over $5.4B per year.  What do we gain?

Talk about a stimulus package, what are these young adults going to do with the income???  Yes, wouldn’t you like to believe save for college, not likely. They will spend it, several billion into the economy.

How many houses can they get to?  500,000 = teams of two = 250,000 teams, five places a day, two not home, they do three houses per day = 750,000 homes a day x 60 days = 45M homes.  Pretty aggressive, so say it is half that to be conservative, 22.5M homes.

111 million households in US – we get to 20% in one summer.  How much electrical savings? 1,139 (billion kWh) per year from all households.  We reduce by 10%-12%, which are numbers I have seen for conservation and what Germany has achieve with similar programs.  Per year electrical reduction = 20% of 1,139 billion x 12% = 27.3 (million kWh) or the equivalent elimination of 2,600 housholds from the grid.

Here in New England we expect anywhere from 75 to 120 inches of snow each year, and it needs to be removed from driveways and sidewalks.  In true American style, we have built some monster snowblowers, to do the heavy lifting for us.  Gas powered, noisy, newspaper eating,  propellors throwing the snow 30 feet in the air.  Fun, yes. Green, no.

Since I couldn’t find a nice battery operated snowblower, I had to resort to looking at manual alternatives, and I found it.  The Wovel.  Yes, the Wovel.

Other than strange looks from my neighbors, which I am already used to, I expect to be able to clear the snow in about the same time as the snow beast.

I am actually excited about the first snow fall.

I will keep you up to date on how it works.

www.wovel.com

http://www.findsolar.com/

http://www.getsolar.com/

Once you have selected a provider, the first step is usually a quick suitability review from the installer.  With an address, they can pull up google maps and get a view of your house, determine the orientation and roof structure.  From that initial review you get some immediate feedback about solar applicability on your house.

A site review is usually next, some firms will charge for this survey.  I imagine in their mind it is a way to determine the seriousness of customers.  The survey in my case, consisted of a 90 min review of the house.  The technician was looking at potential places for the installation, roofing and support structure, trees and shading issues, sun orientation, location of the inverters in the basement – a vented cabinet size area is needed for that and finally a review of my electric bills for the past year. This cost me $100.

About 10 days later, I received a detailed proposal.  The proposal contained pictures of the proposed installation, it’s orientation, any trees or shading that would need to be addressed, estimated energy production on my specific installation, savings and the most importantly the state and federal credits available.

A well structured ROI ( return on investment was included), and a cash flow over the life of the system were included.

The details of this installation;

Rooftop Solar Array:
Azimuth (Direction of array): 240º
Inclination: 22º (flush with roof)
Solar Access: 92%
Derate factor: 0.708
Size of solar installation: 4.94 kW DC. (26 solar panels model ES-190)

Price of Solar Installation (all costs) $35,243
Instant Savings (Commonwealth Solar Rebate) -$20,995

Upfront Cost to You $14,248

Recovered costs in year one: (Tax Credits)
State Income Tax Credit1 -$1000
Federal Income Tax Credit2 -$4274

Cost to you after rebates and tax credits $8,974

Estimated savings over 25 year life of solar panels: $85,600
Estimated increase in home value $22,500 – (based on a study by the Appraisal Institute)
Payback including increase in home value Immediate
Payback not including increase in home value 5 years
Usable life of solar panels 25+ years
Estimated annual energy production 4900 KWH
Carbon Dioxide emissions displaced per year 4510 lbs

I know that I would believe in the increase in home values in today’s economy, but the payback without that is still only 5 years.  I also don’t know if I believe the 25 year life of the panels.

I am meeting with the installer to review the proposal and get more details on what I would need to do ahead of time.  They are recommending I remove some trees, and also replace the roof prior to installing the units.

The panels are from Evergreen, which is a quality company.

Some initial questions;

Review the tax credit and or rebate process, income level qualifications, paperwork process, and timing, when does paperwork need to be submitted when would I see a check

Part guaranty and installation guaranty.

Licensing and insurance of installers

Maintenance needed

Snow and ice

What else should I be asking?

This company has made substantial progress in the market place for both wind farms, commercial and residential installations. Helix Wind, www.helixwind.com .  Unlike my previous posts on early entrants into the vertical wind market, see http://mygreensuit.com/2007/09/10/vertical-wind-turbine/ .  Helix has built products that are quiet, efficient, and look good.  I could see this is a back yard, knowing that it was producing energy and helping our environment.

See their video

Look for costs to continue to come down, as lower cost materials are used and mass production starts.  Believe it or not the height required for most of these units in a residential setting, is 30 feet above the tallest trees in your surrounding area.  Clearly, many people could get away with a simple, lower cost installation and start going green.

The earth absorbs almost 50% of all solar energy and remains a nearly constant temperature of 50°F to 70°F depending on geographic location. Working with an underground loop system, a geothermal unit utilizes this constant temperature to exchange energy between your home and the earth as needed for heating and cooling.

In winter, water circulating inside a sealed loop absorbs heat from the earth and carries it to the unit. Here it is compressed to a higher temperature and sent as warm air to your indoor system for distribution throughout your home.

In the summer, the system reverses and expels heat from your home to the cooler earth via the loop system. This heat exchange process is not only natural, but is a truly ingenious and highly efficient way to create a comfortable climate in your home.

Horizontal Loops are installed in areas where the soil conditions allow for economical excavation. Taking up more land area than any other loop type, they are used where space permits. Trenches are normally 5 feet deep. Normally, several hundred feet of trench is required.

Vertical Loops
Vertical Loops are used extensively where land area is limited. A pair of pipes with a special U-Bend assembly at the bottom are inserted into a bore hole that averages between 150 to 250 feet in depth per ton of equipment.

Some cost comparisons;

UPDATE #2

The problem part was the handle unit, which I replaced fairly easily once I received it from Neuton. I do appreciate that the machine is pretty simple. Not much to it, battery, handle, one circuit board to connect all switches etc, and the blade.

I finally used it this weekend on my 1/3 of an acre and it work quite well. No issues with ability to cut the grass, which was fairly long. I used the bagger and it worked fine, although it is smaller than a normal bagger, which meant I had to empty it more. It did not clog up with grass at any point.

I was impressed with the cut. I don’t know if I had a dull blade on my other mower or this mower does something different but the clippings were short and small and the grass looks more even. Overall I was pleased with the results of the new mower. It certainly was quieter, and yes I did have neighbors stopping by to make comments. They all mentioned how light it looked (it is), and how quiet it was.

UPDATE

I finally received the new lawnmower, setup was easy, charging the battery was as expected. I was excited to use it for the first cut of the year, I was sure the neighbors would be curious and come to see the new gadget. Unfortunately, once the unit was setup, it didn’t start. After relooking at all the instructions, having my daughter reread the instructions (Dad is not known for his patience in reading those stupid things), it still would not start.

I got on the phone with Tech support, who determined it was a problem with my handle, which has the switches to activate the mower inside. They will be sending me a new handle. They were responsive and helpful but I have to drag out the old, loud, mower for now. Hopefully, I can get this going.

UPDATE END

My next investment is a battery powered lawnmower from a company in Vermont, called Neuton Power Equipment. I am awaiting arrival of the 19″ mower. This is a new model, most to date, have been smaller in width, 16″ and under powered. This makes it more work to mow the lawn, more passes across the lawn, even more frequent cutting because it can not handle the longer grass. I hope this model can fill the bill.

http://www.neutonpower.com/

Some intersting comparisons from their site between my current lawn mower and this unit

Fact: A gas mower spews 87 lbs. of the greenhouse gas CO2, and 54 lbs. of other pollutants into your air every year.

Fact: Over 17 million gallons of gas are spilled each year refueling lawn and garden equipment – more petroleum than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

Fact: Gas-powered mowers send over 1,800 times the hydrocarbons into the atmosphere when compared to the environmentally-sound choice of battery-powered mowers.

Well over 5 million of these machines are still sold in the U.S. every year.

But these machines have barely evolved in over half a century, and in today’s world that’s really behind the times. According to the EPA, gas mowers are reponsible for nearly 5% of our nation’s total air pollution. Over 800 million gallons of gasoline are used mowing our nation’s lawns every year. And if you operate one for more than 15 minutes, experts advise you to wear hearing protection.

When you mow with the Battery-Powered Neuton Mower, you are helping to:

• Eliminate accidental fuel spillage (a major contaminate to our underground water tables)

• Eliminate pollutants and carbon emissions (mowing 1 hour with a gas mower produces the equivalent pollution as driving a car 50 miles)

• Eliminate ear-damaging noise (gas mowers can damage your hearing and the peace & quiet of your neighborhood!)

I am focused mostly on the carbon emission reduction but the noise reduction will be an added benefit.

I will update you later on how this works out.

I love this idea. The problem with many wind turbine installations has been the NIMBY it fosters in local communities. The large turbines, destroy the view, make too much noise and cost too much. Those are the usual complaints. We have a major wind project held up along the cape cod coast for exactly these reasons.

Well what if commercial buildings incorporated the vertical designed turbine described below ? What if cites incorporated these units into there power systems (think electrical distribution poles), or into there signage throughout the city? What if billboard owners put these units on there billboards (especially the display units with leds)?

These seem much less obtrusive than other wind turbines, they can capture the wind from any direction, they are quieter than traditional. Yes, they produce less energy than many of the bigger units, but this is a volume game here. Hopefully with mass production would come lower per unit costs. Some Specs on the big selling unit;

Some cool examples of installations at their site http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

Costs look like 30% more than traditional system. In my home I would get that back in a few years with savings from my oil-furnace system.

http://waterfurnace.com/comfort_systems.aspx

We should consider incentives for builders to incorporate this into their building plans. If you were building a trac of McMansions, with underground facilities for power, sewer, water, what kind of work are we talking about to do put closed loop geothermal systems in place for the houses to share? Seems to me all the equipment is there, if planned out the way the other underground systems are planned, this could be done for less money.