While reading a Wall Street Journal Article, I stumbled upon the current debate of whether home wind turbines should be implemented. In my view, there are positives, but also negatives to deeply consider.
Pros
In the article, a couple stated that they had a "100-foot wind turbine" on their front lawn that generated around "2-3 households" worth of energy. As mentioned in one of my previous articles on this blog, windmills are an extremely efficient method for harnessing energy while not producing greenhouse gases into the environment.
On top of being environmentally efficient, local windmills could help regular people pay less on their energy bill, a financial relief to most.
Wind power generation is also a renewable source of energy, and the small impact of supporting a few households with one turbine can add up to big changes if implemented more in urban areas.
Cons
Although local windmills can directly benefit regular people, they must be placed in adequate locations that support their structure. Windmills obviously can only be put in places that are met with great wind gusts, ruling out the commercialization of windmills in drier states like Arizona. Additionally, windmills are better to be kept in locations where wind is constantly flowing for better energy generation, and in most urbanized locations, there is no guarantee for how often wind will pass throughout a day.
The benefit of buying a local windmill might pay off in the long-run, but for the average household, people tend to divert from investing so much money in one big purchase with a product that requires multiple factors to perform its best.
Windmills are typically built upon farmland, far from urban areas, and are occasionally dangerous to wildlife. Many instances of birds being blinded by windmills and meeting their deaths are examples of the fatal nature it has towards aviary creatures. If implemented in more housing areas, whole flocks of birds could be in danger.
Conclusion
The debate on having local windmills is a long and hard one to consider, seeing the many positives and negatives. The choice is up to you, and if the government chooses to look more deeply into the matter, perhaps we will see the new environmentalist policies being made and taken into action by our new president elected just a few days ago.
Link to WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/home-wind-turbines-us-future-926992d7
