What do George W. Bush, Jay Leno, and New York Mayor Bloomberg have in common? They’ve all installed small-scale wind turbines on their properties. Small-scale turbines, those that are less than 10 m in height and deliver less than 100kW at maximum power, are the new rage in independent-energy generation. The 9,000 small turbines sold in the U.S. last year are generating enough energy to power 7,000 American homes.

Does this mean that “the answer is blowing in the wind”. Not necessarily, there are a slew of concerns with small-scale wind turbines not to mention several publicized wind-farm blunders such as broken blades and killing bats.

Small-scale wind turbines are also given grief for being noisy, ugly, dangerous, and ineffective-a showy self-congratulatory act for the “green”-minded. But these claims are only true to some extent…

Wind turbines are noisy compared to what? Certainly electricity-producing plants are louder. Also, the technology is rapidly improving, the newest Swift turbine design has eliminated the steady-hum associated with wind farms and is only 35 decibels loud.

As for ugly, well to some degree that depends on your point of view. They’re unarguably more attractive than electricity plants, but those aren’t located on your roof (which highlights a broad impediment to independent energy generation, the not-in-my-backyard syndrome). Also, many of the newer designs are cool is a futuristic way-svelte gyrating silver balls reminiscent of something out of science fiction movie.

Dangerous? Installations of all new technologies have the potential to be dangerous if they are not carefully regulated. Because small-scale turbines are a new market and because there is significant red tape and community opposition, there is currently no independent organization that certifies turbine manufacturing and installation.

Fortunately change is in the wind-a branch of the American Wind Energy Association is implementing a certification council in 2009 to do just this. The implication being, the less resistance there is to small-scale turbines the quicker the associated dangers will diminish.

The most salient and true of these objections to small-scale turbines is that they (can be) ineffective. Small-scale turbines only have about a 15% capacity rating, the fraction of wind energy that they can actually harness. At this capacity, we’re talking 3.3 mwH a year, or about 30 percent of the average American household’s annual energy use.

But this is really in the best-case scenario, many places simply do not have a consistent, strong-enough supply of wind. In particular, urban areas can have a capacity factor as low as 10% because of trees and buildings that “rob” the wind of its momentum.

What about expenses? Wind generated-electricity is actually very close to being competitive with grid-electricity, about 10-15 cents (per kWH of production). However, this doesn’t take into account the cost of installing and maintaining small-scale turbine-anywhere from 4000 to 12000$ upfront and an additional 20% of that cost for maintenance over its estimated 20-year lifetime. But, if you do live in an area with high electricity costs, government-backed incentives that pay you cash if you contribute green-energy to the grid (in California and parts of NY, PA, Ohio, and Montana), and harnessable-wind power the payback can be as soon as six years.

So what’s the verdict? In up to ten percent of American homes, installing small-scale wind turbines makes sense. (And that’s a conservative estimate). The market is expected to grow between 20-30% in the next several years, driving cost reduction, increased reliability and hopefully spurring less community and government resistance. Small-scale turbines have the potential to generate 1.5 TWh of electricity and avoid 600,000 tons of CO2 emissions-clearly not the “silver bullet” but an important contribution that can work in conjunction with other renewable energies, such as solar panels.

There is not yet a central source of information to ease the process, so installing your own wind turbine would be a little involved-checking average winds speeds in your area, talking to the city and getting permits, baking your neighbors cookies to persuade them that their view wouldn’t be horribly ruined…but if you’re energetic and want to make a quantifiable difference, look into small-scale wind turbines to experience the thrill of semi energy independence.