Windmills

Everyone has seen a windmill before. They are a free source of ultra clean energy. But windmills are not used on a large scale except for in the the western U.S.. Why is that? Well the excuse is that there just isn't enough wind. Well I say no.

I have always heard that tossing a penny off of the Empire State Building won't hit the ground. There are two reasons for this. 1) The penny will hit the roof of a lower floor of the building. 2) the strong updrafts of wind will throw the penny up (to a point) and will greatly slow the fall.
So based on this and knowing that winds are constantly battering the tall buildings of the world I came up with an idea. Have horizontal windmills that are attached to the sides of buildings. They would capture this wind almost constantly and the energy would be stored in small batteries on each floor or so. This power would run the lights and other electronic devices and when that energy is used up (which would require a week or so of no wind) the traditional power source would be used. Think of the applications of this in a city like Chicago where the wind is always blowing.

This idea was more reccent and even more far-fetched, but here it is.
With the advent of the hybrid car craze I was thinking of a way to use windmills or the same principle to power a car. Picture this: A car, normal looking on the outside except the front where the grill is sits what looks like a fan. The fan is connected to the battery and as the car drives 70mph down the road that fan is spinning wildly, constantly charging the battery. Of course a normal gas engine would be present just like in today's hybrids but would be barely used, majorly cutting gas use. Battery technology is not good enough for a battery of this size to the constantly drained and recharged but in the future I bet this could be a reality.

People don't look at wind energy as a viable solution but I think that is a BIG mistake. Coupling wind energy with other forms of alternative energy can have very profitable results. Even if people are not causing Global Warming and hurting the environment, nobody likes high gas prices and I am sure we could all do with a breath of clean air. So because of all of this I have made a page about it. I plan to expand it in the future but for now it is very simple. I have taken advantage of Safari 3.1's new Webkit technology to give some really nice special effects. Please note they will only work in Safari so we recommend you download the most recent version from Apple's website. (It is almost as much of a Safari feature showcase as it is about windmills haha.) Click here to visit.