Welcome to Native Winds

Native Winds is a company dealing with passive energy and the ways and means to provide state of the art technology to society and the homeowner as well.  As Native Winds emerges into the marketplace it will take a leadership position in this field.  The overall scope of this project is to supplement the existing power grid with energy produced from passive energy and reduce the amount of electrical energy produced through the burning of hydrocarbon compounds.

Over the next ten to fifteen years, Native Winds will erect several turbine parks with an overall turbine population of approximately 10,000 wind turbines.  The overall scope of power generation will be above 100 gigawatts.  This will allow traditional hydrocarbon generation of electrical power to either be reduced and/or have the hydrocarbon resources used in other sectors.

When it comes to power generation most people do not have any idea of how power is actually generated.  It is both a very simple process and complicated at the same time.  In a nut shell, electrical generation is the same no matter where you do it the world over.  All that is required is a generator and the ways and means to turn the generator.  Most electrical generation is accomplished by connecting a generator to a steam turbine.  Depending on the particular design the steam required to turn the turbine can be produced by nuclear energy, or by burning coal or oil in a boiler.  Natural gas can be burnt in a gas turbine that is connected to a generator.  This method is very much like a jet engine that is connected to a generator.  The only difference is that a gas turbine used for this purpose is much heavier and not designed for flying, but basically identical in operation.  Another form of power generation is hydroelectric power.  Electric power is produced by connecting a generator to a water turbine.  This is a type of passive power generation but requires a dam being built to cause the water turbines to turn.

Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse and Jacob Schoellkopf”s company, Niagra Falls Power Company built the first modern hydroelectric facility at Niagra Falls which is still currently in use.  Financing of this project was provided by J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV and the Vanderbilt family.

A wind turbine is no different than other ways and means to produce electricity.  A wind turbine is nothing more than a fan attached to a generator that is turned by the wind.  It is that simple.  As one can surmise, it takes a rather large operation to turn certain types of generators.  It takes hundreds of people to staff and support an electrical generation facility.  Not to mention the associated operating cost and environmental pollution.  An entire wind turbine park consisting of hundreds of turbines can be maintained by only a few workers. 

In contrast to a power generation facility where shutdowns often occur taking the station off line, a wind turbine park might only have a turbine or two down for maintenance.

Then there is always the argument about wind speed not being able to turn if there is no wind present.  This will no longer be considered when dealing with state of the art wind turbine technology.  Actually, there was German technology that came out of WW II that provided technology which enabled a turbine to turn without wind currents being present.  We won't reveal any more on this technology except to say that when you figure your financial return on a wind turbine you take your advertised wattage times 24 hours times what is referred to as burden.  The burden for the most part takes into consideration the time which the turbine is not turning.  Your burden is dictated by the wind stream in a particular geographic region.  Many wind farms feel lucky to have a .25% burden.  With available technology the burden can virtually be eliminated and the turbine can produce electricity at virtually full capacity.

There are a number of companies having very large wind turbines on the drawing board.  The next generation of large wind turbine will require less wind velocity and produce power levels between 10-20mw.  The accepted standard wind velocity to maintain turbine wind performance is 6 m/s.  That number is already dropping and there are turbines out in the market place that will perform with less wind velocities. 

Newer technology wind turbines are whisper quiet and are very environmentally friendly.  Contrary to what most people believe a wind turbine moves relatively slow and does not chop up birds as it rotates.  Birds can see the turbine blades as they rotate.  Birds have more problems with airplanes and flying into clear building windows than they do with wind turbines.  Turbines that are located in shallow waters serve as artificial reefs in marine habitats.

It is now turbine time.  The time of the wind turbine is overdue.  As wind turbines gain acceptance in our society, a wind turbine will become more appreciated as time goes on.