Working with the wind Video
Working with the wind Video Transcript
^B00:00:00
>> What'd your neighbor's think when you put this up?
>> They love it. Everyone loves it.
>> San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome is asking about this. A 45-foot wind turbine in homeowner Robin Wilson's back yard in the city's Mission District.
>> I knew how much power I could create, and the idea to make our own electricity for this house. And so I knew that the combo of the TV and this would net us out at zero. And that was really the goal.
>> Within a year of installation, Wilson was able to achieve it 60% of her home's energy comes from photoable [phonetic] tape panels on the roof, and the other 40 from the turbine's three 12-foot blades.
>> Depending on your wind resource, you have a 12-mile an hour average wind, that will come out to about a nine cent per kilowatt generation. I know here in California they're paying anywhere between 12 and 14 cents a kilowatt. So you're definitely saving money by having a tight string.
>> That is, after the initial cost of 13 to 20 thousand dollars for the turbine.
>> Now the question is, how do you scale to bring down the costs so that we can truly provide the economic argument -- that is a powerful argument -- so that it can drive people to change behavior and make this kind of investment.
>> With members of the media, Mayor Newsome toured the house moments before announcing a new residential wind power working group task force.
>> We have 27 sites now that we have located throughout the city where we're actually analyzing wind potential.
>> But the turbine is not the only green feature of this house.
>> We're collecting all of our rainwater. The rainwater goes back in the house for the laundry and the toilets. And then all of the water in the house, except the toilet water, goes to our greywater system, which feeds all the irrigation. These are little LED light.
>> Are they all LED?
>> Yeah. And this will last 15 years with the lights on.
>>With the lights on?
>> Yeah. The bulbs will last 15 years. It draws very little electricity.
>> That's great.
>> The waters in the tubes transfers it -- the electricity -- or transfers the heat to the water that runs through. So it actually gets very, very hot.
>> I'll be the judge of that.
>> The Discovery Channel was so impressed with all of these elements that the house is named one of the top 12 green homes in the world. It will be featured on an upcoming episode.
>> Ready to move in?
>> From my little apartment? Are you kidding?
>> I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET News.com ^M00:02:22 [ Music ]
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