Why can't one windmill produce a lot of energy?

Question

Why can't one windmill produce a lot of energy?

Answer 1

i have been trying to hook a windmill to the network (so no batteries needed) it would reduce my bill in half it costs about $3000 to install BUT the canadian government wants $5000 from me becuase i am an energy producer. Windmills are the answer but the government and oil companies like to s***w you

Answer 2

U can not get something for nothing. Why doesn't the small car motor equal a much bigger .

Answer 3

It's a matter of a couple things:  How strong the wind is, how much surface area versus resistance it can push, and electric generator technology/battery technology.

Most times with independant wind systems, you're looking at charging a battery from the turbine, then using the battery to power whatever it's hooked up to.  

If you have little wind, but steady, you can push a certain size blade, which in turn can push a certain size "dynamo" or turbine.  That charges a battery at a certain rate.  We drain the battery at a certain rate - so technically, we COULD slowly use more energy during the evening hours, then recharge better overnight, if the capacity of the battery was enough.  BTW, there's a new drum shaped turbine in Australia that is about 6 feet long by 3 feet wide (guessing according to the pic I saw).  Two of them power a ranch in AU where the inventor lives.  Cost:  $750 AU each.

Answer 4

Commercial scale wind turbine generators can generate up to 5MW of power.  At this time, this is the practical limit based on available materials of construction and turbine blade design.  Future advances in materials science and blade aerodynamics may extend this limit.

5MW is not a trivial amount, but even  so, it would take 200 or more turbines to equal even a small conventional power plant, and they would still only work when the wind is blowing.

Answer 5

Large commercial wind power generators using 100 foot blades convert their motion from a blade speed of 23 r.p.m.s then run it through a gearbox which converts 23 revolutions into 1400 r.p.m.s at the generator.

It all depends on how much power you need, how much wind you have and how deep your pockets are.

Answer 6

because they are not designed for generating energy they are to grind wheat or corn

that is why they are called wind MILLS

if you want energy get a wind generator or turbine

and the size of the propeller determines the power produced

check out these generators

they dont kill birds

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkmQNeGtHIm...

Answer 7

How much is a "lot"?

Answer 8

one windmill could probably produce more energy than you think.  windfarms can be erected at sea, with thousands of seperate mills...its really cool, and would be a perfectly viable, never-ending source of energy, if we could use it.  society is integrated into an oil lifestyle though and our dictators will squeeze every drop of cash they can out of us under the current system.  record oil company profits and record gas prices- see the correlation?  despite what some say, theres plenty of oil still in the earth, and the people who run things will use that against us until something is done to stop them.