Wind Turbine Project Part 12 (blades are finished)

Why would you carve wooden blades by hand from a 2 x 6? That's just crazy. If you are building a wind turbine, can't you purchase blades, or mold them from fiberglass, or make them out of some high-tech carbon fiber?

The wind turbine Engineers with a Mission is building for the World Hunger Relief farm, however, is meant to be a demonstration of so-called "appropriate technology". What I mean by that is technology that doesn't fart in public. No, wait... I mean technology that is appropriate for the culture in which it is to be used. Since our long-term goal is to deploy small wind turbines in developing countries, we need to keep in mind the types of tools and materials that are available in these places. To be "appropriate", people must be able to repair, replace, and afford them in places like, Uganda, for instance, which makes carbon fibers "inappropriate" and likely to remain single indefinitely.

Here is where the students tell me that you need more than three blades and wind to make electricity. What ev.

Eduardo, Greg, David, and I are truly men out standing in their field. Get it?

The blades were Greg's project. He did an excellent job. I tried not to drop them! We had to pose like this for some photographers that were doing a PR piece. It felt really corny to stand there like this, but I think the picture came out pretty good.

This is the World Hunger Relief's "Nicaragua House". It is built in the style of Habitat for Humanity houses in rural parts of Central America. Right now, some unlucky WHR interns live there under many blankets and near the wood-burning stove. They have no electricity there, so we intend to use the power from the wind turbine to make the interns' lives a little better. If it blows hard enough, he may even be able to use an electric blanket!