DIY Wind Energy - Saving Money While Saving the Planet

There is an awful lot of talk about going green these days, especially with the election of President Obama and the seemingly eco-friendly Democrats dominating Congress. As individuals we can do our part by tapping into diy wind energy to create electricity to power our homes. It is surprisingly easy to do and very cost effective.

On a national or statewide level when we think of wind power we think of huge wind turbines, usually a whole farm of them spinning in the wind generating vast amounts of electricity. It can be intimidating in a way just by the sheer vastness of them. But that is not at all the case when discussing a residential wind turbine.

A residential wind turbine, or windmill as some people call them, can be built by someone with little to no experience working with their hands. They are surprisingly simple to construct, as long as you have the right plans to follow along with.

And it is rather amazing to think about the cost of building your own DIY wind energy turbine.

Wind energy is harnessed from a turbine or windmill through something that is known as kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is simply the force of the wind acting upon the blades of the turbine to make it spin. The spinning motion is the energy that is created and converted into electricity.

There is nothing at all that is new about this concept. People have been using windmills to generate power from the wind for centuries. Just think about the windmills in Holland that we have all seen in books and on television since we were kids. This is the exact same principle we're talking about here.

The only difference being that instead of using the power of the windmill to crush grain into flour, we are harnessing it to generate electricity to heat our water and to run our computers, refrigerators, stoves and any number of other appliances.

Of course, the windier the climate that you live in, the more electricity you should be able to generate. But if you do not live in an especially windy geographic location you can still take advantage of DIY wind energy. There are basically two different types of wind turbines. There is the conventional, which is the one that we are used to seeing, and then there is a vertical wind turbine.

Vertical wind turbines are much more efficient than their traditional counterparts because they have more blades and are therefore much more efficient as they pick up and utilize more wind. These types of turbines also take up less space. They can even be utilized on patios and balconies by condominium and apartment dwellers.

So as you can see, there are really a great many ways in which an individual, any individual, can take advantage of diy wind energy. And of course, we haven't even touched upon the fact that you will not only be saving a great deal of money on your utility bills, but will also be doing your part to lessen your carbon footprint and help break our dependence on fossil fuels.