You know you live in a small town when the big talk for the last few weeks are the new windmills.


250ft. tall,100ft.blades, will turn in winds from 5to 55mph. It is kinda cool that something this big can be moved by a 5mph wind. We got about 70 of them now..i think. And more coming. Lord knows we have plenty of wind here in N.W. Oklahoma.

We have a bunch of them up north of us. They are neat to watch. Gunflint

i seen plenty of these on my commute this summer between chicago and omaha this summer

wes

Don't look like Pawpaw to me!

Cool picture! Did you take it? Nice job incorporating one of the "original" models in there!!

Rog

That was my intent. I thought it would be cool.

We have plenty of those to go with the wind.

saw these bad boys from 39000 ft 2 wks ago. very impressive...

We have these things all over California, and they are really neat to watch operate!

Charlie

I saw some in Texas, comming back to Virginia from San Diego CA. I think it was around late '89

The most expensive form of electrical generation there is. At first, when the wind mills start going up, they look kind of cool. If you want to see how they destroy the beauty of the landscapes, come to the Left Coast. Nuclear energy is the cleanest most cost effective form of generation there is according to a prof at UC Berkley. There have just been so many scare stories about it though, nuclear is pretty well ruled out. John

Id be interested in reading about how these are expensive. Can you direct me to an article. Im not saying your wrong. It's just that they dont seem to need much maintenance. Not alot of overhead because it doesnt take but a few people to run them. And wind doesnt cost anything to produce. And as far as cluttering up the view...i think they look pretty cool,and they are all on farm land. So they didnt clear any trees or habitat that wasnt already cleared.

Some people call them sight pollution. I think it is just good common sense (finally)

Jeff, these guys need to get out and see - Scenic Western Oklahoma, the Scenic Oklahoma Panhandle, the Scenic Texas Panhandle, the Scenic South East corner of Colorado and the Scenic Western Kansas for this kind of action.

We looked at putting one in our back yard, even with the power company required, by law, to buy back our excess at current rates, our payback was around 30 or 40 years! That wasn't nearly as big as these though.

Q. How big is the wind turbine?
A. Each 30 foot deep foundation required 850,000 pounds of concrete. The 15 foot diameter tubular steel tower measures 231 feet tall and weighs 98 tons. Hub height is 237 feet. Ground to blade tip measures 326 feet – taller than the Statue of Liberty. On top of the tower rests the 24 ton nacelle, the main body of the turbine that contains the gearbox and generator. The rotor, made up of the hub and three 87 foot long blades, is 179 feet in diameter and weighs 16.5 tons.

Q. Why does wind power cost more to generate?
A. Even though there are no fuel costs, generating electricity from wind is more expensive than more conventional means of generation like natural gas and coal primarily because the capital cost of the equipment is higher. This is generally true for most types of renewable energy. Another reason wind generated electricity currently costs more is that the energy found in wind is not as concentrated as it is in conventional gas and coal-fired processes. This means that more equipment is required to capture the same amount of energy.

http://www.smmpa.com/athome/windpwr_faq.html 

Just do a yahoo search for cost of windpower

Thanks Zoinks. I'll do that tonight.

I will say that i have yet to sign up for this type of power.