"Along the same lines, i had a idea. What if someone took a few high output car alternators and hooked them to a big windmill, or if you live on a river you could make a padelwheel, then just run it to a power inverter? Might work." [/QUOTE]

Funny you should mention that. I worked with a guy for years that powered his acreage, house and shop, from a very large homemade solar panel, a home made groundwater system, he made the holding tank out of an old silo, and a several old windmills with high amp car alternators running into a huge bank of old telephone switch batteries. He fought the local electric coop for years because he wanted to only use their power for back up and they didn't want to be tied into the same panels as his "junk". They finally unhooked him from their system and he is still running on his own.

Now I wouldn't neccessarily call his a success story because he was constantly having problems with his system, and he was down as much as he was up, but he is the type to live with it just to prove he could.

John