A Homeowner in Beach Haven Terrace, NJ is facing a number of legal problems from his neighbors and local government over a 12 foot diameter wind generator mounted on a 32 foot high post in his backyard.  This generator manufactured by Southwest Windpower  is reported to have cost Mike Mercurio, the homeowner, green ethusaist and seller of alternative power generation for local homes, $15,000 to generate 25% of his power needs, the remaining power comes from 56 solar panels on his roof, about $50,000.  The main problem cited by his neighbors is the noise from the windmill.  According to the lawsuit, the sound, given off by the mill exceeds that of 50 decibels, considered the level of noise generated by light traffic on the street.  The lawsuit also complains of strobing (flashing) shadows caused by the mills spinning blades.

These are the sort of issues that make solar a more viable solution for urban and suburban area.  But with Mercurios system, likely costing $65,000, is it financialy benefitial?  His gas and electric bills were “as high as $340″ a month, or about $4100 a year.  Paying 8% for using a home equity loan, you would be paying $300 in monthly interest for the loan, which would result in you saving nearly $500 in each year if you never payoff the loan.  As long as the system lasted 15 years without maintenance expenses, it kinda works, but to pay off the loan within the 15 years. This likely pushes the monthly cost of the loan $700

When you look at an all solar system, that has a 25+ year lifetime, it brings the loan servicing to about $550 a month for a 10 kw solar solution, about 50% more than the cost of power in Beach Haven Terrace, New Jersey

If you read this blog religiously, which of course everyone should, you heard me discuss the use of a solar “chimney” designed to use a downdraft to push turbines.  The idea being: Spray water over the top opening of the chimney and the cold air generated by evaporation will drop to the bottom of the stack, creating a vacuum that will cause a downdraft.  This is a new and untested idea, but the solar chimney is not.

The “Solar Chimney” runs in reverse, a tall tower can be attached to a greenhouse like, heat sync, which would cause the heated air to rise in the stack producing an updraft thru the tall stack. Placing turbines at/near the bottom of the stack will generate electric power as the tower sucks the warmed air up the stack.  Also called a solar updraft tower, this technology has been tested.  The tower, built by Germany, in Spain was 195 meters high, with a stack with a diameter of 10 meters.  The collection greenhouse covered 11 acres and could generate a maximum of 50 kW, it ran from 1983 until 1989, when it was shutdown due to structural damage from the vortices caused by the updraft. 

Scientists today, envision a much larger tower that is capable of generating 40 MW of electricity, enough to power about 40,000 homes. Unfortunately, estimates for the cost of building such a plant, lead to estimates that range from an affordable 7 cents per Kw/hrs to an unacceptable rate of 35 cents per Kw/hrs.  Much of the cost can be attributed to the cost of land, glazing and labor needed to build a collector “greenhouse” that covers nearly 2 sq/miles.

While not a solar chimney, this updraft concept can, in theory use any heat source to cause the updraft.  This technology should be viable anywhere/anyplace/anytime that the ambient temperature is lower than the heat being sent up the chimney.  Whether this can be financially feasable, it seems quite straight forward from the standpoint of physics and civil engineering.