WIND TURBINES SOLD IN BIG BOX STORES

WIND TURBINES SOLD IN BIG BOX STORES

Canadian Tire stores are located in big box mall slots all across Canada.   If you aren’t familiar with Canadian Tire    http://www.canadiantire.ca/index.jsp [1] , they are a hybrid of  tire/battery sales/service, auto parts, hardware and paint, home wares, lawn care, bbq, and sporting goods.   Canadian Tire’s gimmick is their issue of  “Canadian Tire Money” as a premium on every sale to be used against future purchases.  Your kids usually end up with it. 

Against a backdrop of fossil fueled power boats (got me thinking about http://www.electriclaunch.com/ [2] ) and automobiles, I felt a slight glimmer of hope for the global environment when I walked into a Canadian Tire store in Ontario last week   I was looking for a DC to AC inverter for a solar powered battery system and thought Canadian Tire might have one.  

Not only did Canadian Tire have a dozen sizes of inverters, they had a half dozen wattage sizes of solar panels, both amorphous and crystalline, and charge controllers,  AND they had small wind turbines in bright yellow boxes ready to put on a shopping cart. 

The wind turbines are still too pricey at Canadian $1,000 (400 peak watts 28 mph)   and Canadian $3,000 (Whisper 100, 900 peak watts 28 mph) http://www.windenergy.com/products.htm [3]  but the GOOD NEWS is that wind turbines are being mass produced and carried for sale in a big box store along side every other consumer item. 

Has anyone seen wind turbines in big box stores in the USA?