  [Photo from Connors934 on Flickr]  For this final installment
of our Make: Green series, we look at a promising technology for
generating electricity: wind turbines. A wind turbine consists
of a propeller, a generator, and either an inverter or storage
system. The propeller is essentially two or more airfoils
attached to a hub. When the wind blows across the surfaces of
the blade, it creates areas of low and high pressure, and this
difference causes a change in movement. As the turbine turns, a
generator attached to the hub on the prop turns a coil in a
magnetic field. Moving magnets cause electricity to move through
the wires of the generator, which moves through the circuit
towards the electronics that regulate either the battery storage
system or the inverter for grid-tied systems.  OtherPower, the
cutting edge of low technology, is a great resource for
information on wind energy and turbine building. They’ve been
building and testing wind-harnessing systems for years, and
recently published a book Howme