By Ugo Bardi
We are seeing the development of a small (or maybe not even so small) PR campaign designed to convince people that small wind turbines are better than PV panels. It goes (or should go) without saying that these turbines are much less efficient than PV panels, they are expensive, unreliable, noisy, require maintenance, and - about the fact that they are "silent" wait a few years to hear the noise of the worn out ball bearings. And let's skip the description of what could happen if they are hit by a serious gust of wind. The one above is especially clunky, it looks like Flash Gordon's spaceship. Fortunately, it seems to be just a rendering of something that doesn't exist in practice.
It is, likely, a rear-guard battle of the fossil lobby to try to slow down the diffusion of photovoltaics. Unfortunately, some people seem to believe that these micro-turbines are useful for something. It shall pass, but, as usual, it will take some time.
