Your Questions About Wind Turbine Jobs
Betty asks…
is it possible for people to operate wind turbines almost like peddle bikes?
what i am saying is to make a smaller power generating wind turbine and replace the propellers with a bike…..if this was possible how much power/jobs could this open up?
admin answers:
Hey Bret, Blamay is quite right. We’re assuming you ultimately want to generater electricity by peddeling something, is that correct? Some years ago we built one ourselves using a car alternator. Turns out that just would never work. A car alternator is horribly inefficient, needs to be continuously excited by battery power to generate a magnetic field, and once it is up to speed, it creates huge drag on what little torque a human can bear to get the battery voltage up to where it needs to be. What works much better is an electric scooter motor, inexpensive, permanent magnets, ball bearing movement and lower RPM requirements.
Check out the website below, they make a stand you can strap your bike into, the wheel turns the shaft of a small scooter motor/generator while you peddle. The faster you peddle, the more power you generate.
What you have to understand is that a healthy human being exerting around 75% power is only putting out about 1/4 to 1/3 horsepower. Even in a perfect world, that only equates to about 170 watts. Most people aren’t going to do that for more than 20 or 30 minutes a day, so if you do the math, you’re much farther ahead just purchasing a small 50 watt solar panel and letting it do the work for you, and you don’t need space in the garage to run it. I still think it’s a great idea, that’s why we have one here. Sometimes I’ll pay the kids a nickle to peddle it for 15 minutes if it’s cloudy out for a few days, but you’ll never make a “Ton” of power with even a thousand of these things, they are more a novelty, useful for education and games mainly. If you really want to learn more about renewable energy, check out some of the sites I’ve included below, or click on my avatar and check out some other questions and answers we have done recently. Take care Bret, Rudydoo
Jenny asks…
What type of engineers work in the field of sustainable energy?
Im considering doing a Building Services and Sustainable Engineering degree, what kind of jobs do you think it will open up for me?
Will i be able to work with sustainable/renewable energies, such as solar panels, wind turbines etc? or would i need a different type of engineering course to do that?
Any more information on engineering would be more than helpfull, im not 100% sure whether i want to do an engineering degree or not.
thanks
admin answers:
Hi,
From my own knowledge, jobs open for Sustainable Engineering degree are Electrical Engineer, Project Engineer, Project Admin., Project Manager etc.
Some consultancies provide solar installation courses, but I am not sure if it is what you want to do.
And sustainable engineering is a vast concept, you may need to choose your major orientation later, like wind energy, bioenergy, or solar…
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