Following up on my amazement yesterday about the glut of wind farms…the whole thing about wind farming is that it looks so easy. Like dew worm farming. Or mushrooming. You just put up a fan, and the wind blows it, and a little machine turns it into electricity. And it’s free! Almost growing wild on the beach.

Like many, I was so enchanted with the concept of getting easy money that I did some figuring –not my strong suit– but I calculated that if I had just one of these giant wind turbines, say the 250-footer, I would have a 2- megawatt wind farm. A megawatt turns out to be a thousand kilowatts, and just to explain it in terms you understand, a 100 watt bulb costs about 55 cents up at ACE Hardware, and it’s good for a 1,000 hours they say.

Rounding that all up, I stood to pull in about $43,000,000 per year, before taxes. Mind you, there are no taxes because the government is subsidizing the whole thing for me.

Actually, I may have that slightly wrong. On good authority, I learned my new turbine would really cost $3,500,000.

If I borrowed the money from friends, my operating costs, maintenance and loan interest would work out to $290,000 per year. Which is, admittedly, more than I am making now, so I am really interested in selling one of these contraptions to somebody else.

But nevertheless, once it’s all in place, it is guaranteed to deliver 5,260 Megawatt Hours of power per year. I am just thinking about the batteries I am going to purchase to hold all that electricity. When all is said and done, my cost to produce a Megawatt hour is around $55. That’s like, only 100 lightbulbs, which I can handle.

When I whittled this down to Kilowatt hours, which I know is more comfortable for you, it’s a measly 5-1/2 cents each.

Awesome, right? Now you’re up for it, I can feel it.

This is where it gets interesting though. I looked at the latest ransom note we received from Commonwealth Edison, and they are only demanding 4-3/8 cents per Kwh. Hah! No wonder they can’t make any money! If they sold my wind farm product, they could shut down Niagara Falls, and still be in the black by Tuesday.

As a practical business person however, I am doing nothing at this time, pending sage advice from my accountant who is allowed one phone call a week.

If you are eager to get in on this, but looking for something a little more in your income bracket, there is a company out there now, Southwest Windpower, which is installing back yard wind turbines faster than you can say “Oklahoma” .

Their Skystream 3.7 goes for $12-$14,000, and they are flying –haha– off the shelves.

Myself, I am forever teetering on the innovative edge. I am preparing a personal, hand-powered turbine. This one is all natural, 100% environmental, multi-directional, and can be used on the calmest, or windiest of days without pause.

See, I told you this would be easy.