I just spent a couple days skiing with my youngest daughter. Since I was the slowest thing on the mountain, I had some time to reflect as I zigzagged down the slopes. The photo below shows Tessa with a 1.5 MW Wind Turbine behind her.

Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort uses about half of the 4.6M KwHrs the wind turbine produces each year. Figuring the portion they use at retail value of 10 cents/KwHr and the wholesale portion fed back into the grid at 3 cents/KwHr, that yields about $300,000 US of electricity savings each year. But their Wind FAQ sheet shows the install cost at $4M, which goes to a simple payback of 14 years, not including maintenance and replacement.

My first thought upon seeing the wind mill was, “Wow, now there is a good use of green energy.” The quick calculation shown above proves otherwise.

I’ve written previously about the terrible economics of solar photovoltaic installations. They don’t even come close to making financial sense, even with all the government subsidies. So I went looking for another green energy project.

I spend way too much money each month heating an Endless Pool with an electric heater. So I had a whiz kid friend help me design a simple solar hot water heating system that I could put on the roof. I had extra Plexi-Glass sheets from an old construction project, so I figured the costs would work. By the time I got all the plumbing (and especially the copper tubing and sheeting) estimated, though, I found another project that didn’t make sense.

Why install a solar system, that will need a good bit of tweaking and maintenance, for a non-existent payback? As cool and fun as it seemed, I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I will install a gas pool heater that looks to payback in a year or two.

So I’m still searching for a sensible green energy project. Do you know of any that make technical and financial sense?