MUDGE’s Musings
Wind power, as are all alternatives to our majority present day power generation technologies, is of increasing interest, especially as coal-fired power and nuclear power plants are presently deemed obnoxious.
This nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© has covered alternative energy a number of times, and wind power specifically, most recently here and here.
Today’s NYTimes journeys to Texas to find the fastest growing region for wind power generation, since nothing, but nothing is done by half in Texas (except, perhaps, the wits of our sitting President, most proud of his Texas origin).
The Energy Challenge
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS | Published: February 23, 2008
SWEETWATER, Tex. — The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.
“That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.
By the time Mr. Brooks gets his entire turbine farm in place, it will be generating a lot of electricity, and nearly a $million in income for him, just for permission to provide easements for the gargantuan structures.
[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind – New York Times
Wind turbines don’t come without costs (beyond the millions apparently paid to landlords for hosting them).
Every day is not windy. Getting the generated power out of the farms takes large ugly power transmission lines: NIMBY, thank you very much.
The turbines themselves, and the farms they are planted in, are growing increasingly large and, to many eyes, surpassingly ugly, although one must remember that when first built for the 1889 Paris Exposition, Eiffel’s tower was deemed so ugly that it was certainly going to be dismantled (designed to do so easily) when its 20-year lease expired.
Now it’s the world famous symbol of its city and country.
Of course, there’s only one (except for the odd replica). Wind turbines seem to grow in clumps; in profusions of clumps, actually.
Yr (justifiably) humble svt rather likes the looks of them, as he embraces many of the artifacts of contemporary technological civilization, such as skyscrapers, bridges and dams. Of course, I don’t live too near any of those, nor do I live within sight or sound of a wind turbine farm.
If I did, I might develop an altogether different opinion, especially were I to have purchased property in the region first, but hadn’t been asked to provide those lucrative Texas- sized easements.
In that case I might heartily dislike the view and the sound, and the pulpy debris generated (i.e., the aforesaid birds and bats straying into harm’s way) along with the kilowatts.
Coal or nuclear, anyone?
Ah, the price of progress…
It’s it for now. Thanks,
–MUDGE
| Share this post : |  del.icio.us it! |
 digg it! |
 reddit! |
 technorati! |
 yahoo! |
Left-handed Complement 
[…] looked at wind power several times [mm294: Making the world unsafe for bats and birds; mm220: It’s all about power; mm204: Wind power – Ugly, noisy, destructive! Who knew?] in this […]
[…] Today’s most emailed article out of the NYTimes details another take on solar power, from the Nevada desert. No shortage of sand, or, even better, sun. And much more predictable than wind (another topic we’ve looked at several times, most recently here). […]