Wind turbines once acted as a death sentence for thousands of birds, but today’s wind farm entrepreneurs “are trying to reduce the impact on wildlife before turbines even go up,” reports The Coloradoan newspaper. “Research being done before wind farms go up, as well as advances in wind farm technology, are stemming avian deaths…”

Researchers at Colorado State University are trying to learn more than just how many birds are killed by wind turbines, says Bill Farland, vice president of research at CSU. They also want to know whether wind farm development “begins to change migratory patterns of birds,” he said. It is a question scientists have been examining for years, and continue to study each time a new wind farm is built.

Bird deaths are one cause of objection to new commercial-scale wind farms - to the extend that researchers can solve the problem or at least reduce it, commercial wind power’s future will be that much brighter.

But some people aren’t waiting - they’re installing personal-sized wind turbines on their own property to power their own homes. The New York Times is reporting on the trend.

Until recently, wind turbines were used primarily by those who lived outside the range of local utility lines, or who wanted to live completely off the grid. But reductions in their size and cost, along with improvements in their efficiency, are allowing suburban homeowners with no dissident leanings to speak of to install them in growing numbers, with concerns over rising energy costs and global warming driving the demand.

Sales of wind turbines have been growing steadily since 1990, when the American Wind Energy Association, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, began tracking them.

Last year, about 7,000 small wind turbines — defined as those that have a capacity of up to 100 kilowatts, roughly enough to power a large school — were purchased in the US, according to the group, which said it expects sales to reach about 10,000 this year.

That’s a lot of business for the small-turbine makers.

And several states are helping spur the growth:

Residential turbines, which account for half those sales, are typically 10m to 30m tall, with outputs of 2 kilowatts to 10 kilowatts. They cost between US$12,000 and US$55,000, but in recent years, 19 states — including California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Ohio — have begun offering incentives and rebates that can cut purchase prices by up to 50 percent.

Even Uncle Sam may soon chip in:

And last week, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would help states provide grants and low-interest loans for residential turbines, as well as solar panels and geothermal heat pumps. It would also offer a 30 percent federal tax credit on turbine purchases, up to US$4,000. The Senate is now considering a similar measure.

The NYT story also looks at the impact of wind turbines on electric bills and on residential home values, and also gives a peek at the NIMBY issues raised by homeowners erecting wind turbines to power their own homes. While big turbines put birds at risk, small turbines may put neighborhood comity at risk in some cases.

Although the story doesn’t mention any small-turbine makers by name, the American Wind Energy Association offers a good though probably not comprehensive list.

Of the companies on the list, only one - Distributed Energy Systems - appears to be publicly traded. The company’s 100kw model is intended not for single homes, but for small industrial sites, small communities and municipalities, schools, commercial farms and remote village wind-diesel power systems.

With the NIMBY issues raised by single-home wind turbines, I wonder if perhaps the right approach would be middle ground with whole subdivisions being served by a few medium-sized wind turbines. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

The California Wind Energy Consortium has a very helpful web site of information if you’re considering installing a small wind turbine on your property, and the American Wind Energy Association has a similar info site with state-specific information.

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