Alternative energy and wind power – Wind power literally in the palm of your hand
Historically, wind power has played an important role in American culture. During the 1920s and 1930s, farms throughout the Midwest harnessed wind power to generate electricity for their lights and electric motors. When our government began to actively subsidize the construction of fossil fuel-based power plants and associated utility lines, wind power fell into decline. Similar to energy efficiency, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, things that were old became new again. Now, with increasing environmental concerns being expressed globally, many people are re-examining wind power sometime.
Wind Power Fundamentals
One form of energy, wind (a form of solar energy), is converted to another form of energy, electricity, using a wind turbine. As the turbine spins, electricity is generated. Like solar power, wind power is protected from inflation. As? Any power you generate using your own wind turbine goes against current utility prices. Wind power can effectively protect you from rising electricity costs.
Wind power in the palm of my hand?
As consumers show renewed interest in renewable energy sources like wind, product manufacturers are already scrambling to respond. One of the most exciting consumer wind technologies is surprisingly cheap and surprisingly small. How small? You can hold this particular wind turbine in your hand, while generating electricity.
the hymini
A product of MINIWIZ Sustainable Energy Dev. LTD, the HYmini is a revolutionary new eco-friendly product. While I’ve frequently seen many small consumer versions of solar technologies, designed specifically to power your cell phone, PDA, and MP3 players, this is the first portable wind turbine I’ve come across.
The HYmini combines a small wind turbine designed to generate power with wind speeds between 9 and 30 miles per hour with an internal 1200 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery. The HYmini maximizes its ability to convert wind into electricity at 40 miles per hour. The battery is good for about 500 full charge cycles. The HYmini is literally an eco-friendly powerhouse that you can hold in the palm of your hand.
The inventors of the HYmini pushed the boundaries and added some more impressive green features. To maximize the flexibility of their new device, they allowed the HYmini battery to be recharged externally. That means in no time at all you can plug your HYmini into any conventional 100-240V USB port or wall socket and start recharging instantly.
miniSOLAR
If plugging your HYmini into your mains socket isn’t green enough for you, then consider the miniSOLAR option. miniSOLAR is an affordable solar panel designed to work with HYmini. Thanks to HYmini’s external charging capability, you can easily add up to four miniSOLAR panels to recharge your HYmini using solar energy. Each miniSOLAR panel can add up to 140mA at 5V of recharging power. Keeping with the ecological theme, the MINIWIZ team houses each miniSOLAR panel in a recycled cardboard paper package.
HYmini Apps
HYmini is perfect for both runners and cyclists and to encourage usage in both markets, the MINIWIZ team offers a bike mount and armband. If the wind is a bit slow on a particular day, why not add some human energy to the mix? The HYmini will literally generate electricity while burning calories.
Ignoring the wind turbine for a moment, the HYmini is also the perfect rechargeable backup battery pack for all your mobile electronics. This exponentially expands the possible uses of the HYmini.
talk to me about power
Thanks to some useful tests carried out by MINIWIZ, we have some hard data on power generation for HYmini. According to MINIWIZ, using the HYmini wind turbine or miniSOLAR panels, you can capture enough energy in 20 minutes to power:
- An MP3 player for 40 minutes
- A PDA for 40 minutes
- An iPod for 30 minutes
- A cell phone for 4 minutes
- A digital camera for 20 photos
However, to capture that much wind energy you will need constant 19 miles per hour wind speeds Solar panels will also need direct sunlight. You can get more information about HYmini and miniSOLAR panels on the following website:
- http://www.hymini.com/
As technology advances, you can expect to see many more exclusive green technologies, like HYmini. Wind power is a missing part of our culture, other than that we recently started to reconnect and HYmini offers consumers an inexpensive way to implement wind power into their lives today. Using devices like the HYmini can reduce the use and waste of disposable batteries. When batteries are disposed of improperly and end up in landfills or incinerators, they inevitably leak into our environment and ultimately end up in our food chain. Participate in the new wind energy revolution and reduce battery consumption, the environment will thank you.