Friday, December 16, 2011

The Big Wind

An amazing sight this morning: we were suddenly aware of dozens of 300-foot tall, huge wind generators, ringing the horizon to our south off I-40 in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Then they were also marching in on us from the north as well, 98 total generators, capable of producing enough power for 44,000 homes. It was curious that all the generators to our south were turning at precisely the same rotational speed -- on an absolutely breathless high plains morning -- while none of the generators on the northern side of the Interstate turned at all. That's an operational mystery.

But what a beautiful panorama.

1 comment:

brotherdoc said...

I've seen vistas like this on the plains in Idaho, too, and on the central mountain ridge in Costa Rica there's a wind farm with some 40 machines. I also think it's great. They could build an entire network of these across the midwest from Canada to Mexico and just skip that stupid Keystone XL pipeline project. Of course the NIMBYS around here would drop a brick load at the very idea of having to see even one of these things from their decks, although harvesting the wind in the Appalachians is a positive economic driver.