The Wind Farm


On one of our tie-dye vending trips over the summer we made a special point of planning our route home to pass through a large wind farm in the area.  I've seen many windmills, but only once (along the Columbia) have I seen a large number of them all in one place.  They are sort of eerie in a way.   The way they spin and tower over you.  The way they stand in row after row against the horizon.  The place had a rather surreal feeling to it.  But, cool, too.  A charged sort of atmosphere which seems quite appropriate.  I sure admired them spinning away--making lights turn on, ovens heat up, washing machines churn--from wind, from air.
I know wind turbines have problems of their own--like birds hitting the blades and the changes of pressure caused by the spinning action which can harm bats--but coal and oil harms birds and bats, too and  I would venture to say that their impacts are much farther reaching and harder to mitigate.  In places like this--where the winds blow almost constantly across the plains--I think it is a superb that we're trying to harness that force to provide the electricity we so desire.   
Solar power, wind power, and reducing our demand for electricity (that last one it a big one!).  I hope to keep seeing more and more of these things in Montana and around the world.

Comments

  1. My father was so excited when they finally allowed the turbines in our area (what a fight! why??) anyway he and his brothers and sisters(aka the retirees) would go and check out the progress. Sadly he passed before they finished, but as I look across the hill and see many of those grand machines spinning slowly away, I think of my father and how he would have enjoyed the sight.

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    Replies
    1. There is great resistance to them for reasons I cannot quite understand...

      Thanks for sharing this story with me. They are quite the sight.

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  2. Studies looking for dead birds found very few, much less than the ground covered in dead birds like I had always heard.

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