Clean Energy -- Just Not Much Of It

You might want to let those new windmills in Lackawanna prove themselves before you rush out to buy one for your house.

Having spent £13,000 on installing a wind turbine at his home, John Large is disappointed at the return on his investment, which amounts to 9p a week.

At this rate, it is calculated, it will take 2,768 years for the electricity generated by the turbine to pay for itself, by which time he will be past caring about global warming.

The wind turbine was installed at the engineer’s home in Woolwich, southeast London, four weeks ago and has so far generated four kilowatts of electricity. An average household needs 23kw every day to power its lights and appliances.

Mr Large said that his difficulties highlighted the problems faced by consumers who wanted to buy wind turbines to save money and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Like many small turbines, the model owned by Mr Large puts power directly into the national grid, but the requirements of the grid mean that power can start being transferred only once blades have been turning fast enough for several minutes nonstop.

Hm, those fluorescent light bulbs look better and better.