HyMini Deluxe Giveaway

The HYmini Deluxe Comes with a Solar Panel for Extra Charging!

Charge Your Gadgets with the HYmini Wind Turbine

We're Throwing in a Bicycle Clamp Too!

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• PRIZE: A HYmini Deluxe solar and wind power charger and the HYmini bicycle mount (Approximate value $75.00)
• GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Tuesday, August 31st 2010 at 8pm CST
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A discussion around the coffee pot at work led me to today’s post topic, a company called Prairie Turbines was recommended to me by a colleague and after researching their products I decided to wax lyrical about the great work they are doing to make wind power affordable.

Prairie Turbines - Making Wind Power Affordable

Prairie Turbines sell all the parts you need to setup a wind turbine and start your journey towards an “off the grid” lifestyle

http://www.prairieturbines.com/purchase.htm

The main advantages which make the Prairie Turbines much more affordable to buy and operate are as follows;

• Built With Off-the-Shelf Components
• Rugged Efficient Blade Design
• Requires No Batteries, No Inverter
• Grid Ready!!
• Easy to Build and Maintain
• 100 Pages – Step by Step Details Assembly and Installation instructions for DIY installs

Here are some photos of home installations;

Home Installed Prairie Turbine 1

Home Installed Prairie Turbine 2

Home Installed Prairie Turbine 3

Home Installed Prairie Turbine 4

The best selling design is the Breezy 5.5. When connected in parallel with electric utility it produces 5.5 KW with wind speeds of 21-23 mph.  The design can produce about 3 KW in just 12 mph wind speeds. The unique rotor design has been tested with no problems handling winds up to 70 mph.

So what are you waiting for, you can buy the parts and instructions to assemble your own Breezy 5.5 for a little over $4000 and you could generate approx 12,000 kW of energy per year if you live in a zone 3 wind region.

Prairie Turbines Design Schematic

If you are interested in the Prairie Turbines Breezy 5.5 or any of their other fabulous wind turbines then you should definitely visit their site for more information;

http://prairieturbines.com/index.htm

Wind Turbines Silently Turning Together

#2
The Brooklyn wind turbine was installed on the top of a hill in Brooklyn, Wellington in March 1993 as part of a research project.
The Brooklyn site was chosen for the wind evaluation project due to Wellington’s “higher than normal” wind patterns.

The Brooklyn Wind Project

#3
There are 25 windmills, each 20-stories high, on the North side of I-8 near Campo Blvd, an hour east of San Diego (18 miles north of the Mexican border). Called the “Kumeyaay Wind project”, these power 12-15,000 homes and is 70 times larger than the next largest wind project on tribal land.

Wind Power South of San Diego

#4
They have wind turbines out at sea off the coast of Copenhagen. It made for a beautiful sight as we sailed away.

The Coast of Copenhagen Wind Turbines

#5
Night shot,taken from car with camera balanced on windowsill! (I had the camera strap wrapped round my wrist, so I wouldn’t lose my camera out of the window – and no, I wasn’t driving on this occasion!)

Wind Turbine at Night

#6
Windmills are beautiful! (The Bloomington, Illinois Windmill Farm)

Windmill in Bloomington Illinois

#7
Another beautiful image of windmills from Bloomington Illinois

Bloomington Illinois Wind Powere Reflected

#8
Swiiiiiish, that’s the sound the blades make. they hardly make any sound at all! there is no reason to object to wind turbine based on noise pollution, that’s for sure. I think they are quite beautiful objects.

Swiiiish, Wind Power!

#9
Taken from the bridge between Malmo and Copenhagen in August, 2008 (from the train)

Wind Turbines Taken from a Copenhagen Bridge

#10
Path to Freedom, Whatever your politics are, we need more of this. Its clean, quiet, and really quite beautiful.

The Path to Freedom

Help us to choose the best Wind Turbine photograph;

You can buy one of these Hymini systems directly from NerdSeven.com, they provided us with super fast shipping…

• Eco-Friendly wind turbine generates electricity
• miniSolar panel absorbs sun’s rays to charge Li-On battery
• Stores power using built in 1200mAh Lithium-ion battery
• LED charging indicator lights
• lightweight, completely portable charging

The product with a bicycle mount can be purchased for about $80.00 plus shipping from a great site called NerdSeven.com;

http://www.nerdseven.com/green_gadgets/hymini/hymini_deluxe_wind_powered_charger_with_solar_panel/

What a great product,  I’ll never have a dead iPod again!

This picture of me is included to show an unfortunately unforgettable example just how practical the strategies described in future posts to this column will be.  Real Problem ~ Solution stuff. “P ~ S”

In this case, the problem  was my fear of Sharks.  My job as chief hunter (Karen was chief gatherer) on our Sailing expedition forced me into the water almost daily.   My real instinct was to follow the plan endorsed by one of our cruising companions who claimed he had a deal with sharks, “If the sharks would agree to stay out of the Pubs he would promise to stay out of the water.”

Having seen many tearful interviews in which the victims, or their next of kin,  stated that the shark must have mistaken them, in their black wet suit, for a Harbor Seal or Walrus, I resolved to make sure that I did not – by proportion or color – resemble any standard selection on  “The Bull Shark Catch-of-the Day Menu.”

“P ~ S”.   “Problem ~ Solution”  Still alive and not so much as a close call.

In our sailing days we fitted out both of our boats with wind power and solar power and the deep cycle batteries to store all that we generated.  In future posts we will discuss those systems and power conservation strategies .  We even had a wind powered self-steering system to drive for us on long passages.

After our sailing days we moved to a totally undeveloped 10 acres situated 2 hours west of San Antonio Texas.  There we designed a super energy efficient  home, using passive solar principles and SIP Panels, that included a solar hot water outside shower, grey water system, tankless propane water heater, rain water capture system and a composting toilet.  We did all of the work ourselves.

Like on our boats, through research,  careful design and installation,  our homestead was very successful.  The climate in that area is desert-like. It gets over 100 degrees for days at a time and then down into the teens.  And yet, we never had an electrical bill over $100. and never felt like we were camping out.

Future posts will cover these green adventures and more.

See you then,

Jim