A trip west along Interstate highways can be a surprise. The nation has been changing.
Wind turbines, once a rare enough sight to qualify as a tourist attraction, have been multiplying across the hills and mountains. Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon are sprouting tall white towers with slowly turning vanes that reap electricity from the endless wind.
In spite of the staggering economy, new wind turbines continue to spring up. On the road, trucks carrying the white-cased turbines and the huge vanes that turn them have become a common sight. The vanes are so big that each truck can carry only one and must be accompanied by outrider vehicles warning of the presence of a semi with an oversize load.
The Wall Street Journal says the credit crunch is beginning to affect the rapid growth of wind power, making it difficult for projects to find investors. The nation now has the installed capacity to generate nearly 20,000 megawatts of electricity. And 9,000 more megawatts of capacity is already under construction.
Together, the wind power units already installed or under construction will produce less than 10 percent of the electricity now available from coal-fired plants, but coal-fired plants are falling out of favor. Kansas is not the only state in which new coal projects have run into government roadblocks, and some existing coal plants face a fight to have their operating licenses renewed.
Hesitantly but increasingly, the nation is moving away from the use of carbon fuels, with their inexorable effect on the atmosphere, land and climate.
It is worth noting that the biggest current producer of wind power in the United States is Texas, home of the oil industry. Wyoming, which supplies coal for power plants around the country, is also heavily invested in wind power. According to the American Wind Power Association, Kansas now ranks 12th in the nation in generating wind power. In wind resources, the state ranks third.
A road trip west makes it clear that wind energy is no longer pie-in-the-sky dreaming by environmentalists, but a vital and growing industry. How fast that industry grows will depend on the availability of capital and the willingness of the government to continue to encourage its growth.
Wind power is changing the face of the nation, and Kansas has the potential to become a national leader in the clean generation of electricity.
paulkersey (anonymous) says...
Too bad the NIMBYs blocked this one in the Flint Hills. That is the only place in Lyon County with high enough wind speeds to make a wind farm feasible. I cannot believe that these people say putting a wind farm in a place covered in cow (expletive) would make the place look bad.
October 16, 2008 at 1:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Now there's an industry we should have entertained for this area -- building wind machines. The nearby trucking industry would have benefitted too. I wrote a letter to a city commissioner quite some time ago about this. I never even received the courtesy of a reply.
October 16, 2008 at 2:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
madpoet (anonymous) says...
Wow, mystery solved. I've made 2 trips to Wichita the last few weeks and both times saw big flatbed trucks with huge white SOMETHINGS on them. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were. Now I realize they were turbine blades.
October 16, 2008 at 3:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
paulkersey (anonymous) says...
create:
GE is putting in a plant in Hutchinson that builds turbine blades. 120+ jobs. It is far cheaper to build a plant near where they are putting the turbines up, than ship them from existing factories on the coasts (the blades are 125 ft long!!). I am pretty sure someone at the Chamber is reading this. If you are,
http://www.ge-energy.com/contact/inde...
Observation: I would reply to you, but my battery is almost dead.
or contact numbers...
Daniel Nelson
GE
(518) 385-5992
daniel1.nelson@ge.com
Ken Darling or Howard Masto
Masto Public Relations
(518) 786-6488
kenneth.darling@ge.com
howard.masto@ge.com
October 17, 2008 at 1:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
LifeGoesOn (anonymous) says...
Observation, I would welcome one in my backyard, and those privately owned lands in the flint hills, would have made a Great place for a wind farm. ( cramped cluttered spaces )?
A wind farm is far from cramped and cluttered.
I hate to admit it, but I agree with Create on this one
October 17, 2008 at 6:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Wow Life, that's twice in one week we've agreed. I guess Observation is wrong about my posts being ignored by at least one. LOL
And thank you, Paul for the info on Hutch. We're so close to the areas that can use these turbines, it just makes a lot of sense to try to bring one of those factories here. On top of that, one of those analysts on TV recently gave turbines as one more reason to invest in GE.
Hey City and County Commish, are you listening?
I don't know a lot about the fine points of energy storage, but I have friends who have had a small windmill on their property for years. It doesn't have those big vanes, just smaller ones. It stores energy in a big battery and the power company comes out to drain it from time to time. Their power bill is always credited, and most bills carry a credit.
October 17, 2008 at 9:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
USNretired (anonymous) says...
Is the land beneath these turbines usable? The ones in western Az/eastern Ca are out far from most habitation and recreation. I have seen deer killed by plane props, does the same happen near these turbines?
October 17, 2008 at 10:03 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Observation,
I'm not the one who said my computer battery was run down. Put me down for something I said, I don't care, but not for something someone else said. Geez, PAY ATTENTION!
October 17, 2008 at 10:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
paulkersey (anonymous) says...
I know Scott Briggs on the County Commission is very much for wind power, but like I said, the only place in Lyon County where the wind speed is high enough for a wind farm to be economically feasible (ie-profitable) is the Flint Hills.
http://www.kansasenergy.org/wptf/wind...
The Governor has asked for a self-imposed wind turbine moratorium in the Flint Hills, bordered by US 24 on the north; K-77 on the west; US 400 on the south; and K-99 and K-4 on the east. So no wind turbines west of 99.
October 17, 2008 at 12:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
LifeGoesOn (anonymous) says...
" If we are going to condemn the Flint Hills for our energy needs"??
heres a link observation http://surfaceandsurfacephotography.c...
doesnt look like "thousands" of winmills to me, nor does it look like it is hurting a darn thing out on the landscape, the bunnies are ok as well as the cows,deer and grasses.
Maybe if you would do a bit more research, you would see this is a win win situation for everybody
Nuclear power is good also, but I sure dont want that in my backyard if I had the choice.
October 17, 2008 at 1:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )