A visit to Michigan's first Large scale Wind Farm (graphic heavy)

[greenman3610]

A few weeks ago, several of us went to a public tour of Michigan's first
large scale wind farm, in Pigeon, a small farming community in Michigan's windy,
flat Thumb region-an area of small, rural, and fairly conservative ag-based
towns.



The Harvest wind farm is located very close to Laker High School, which has its own wind program, a combination power production and tech study program, using refurbished 65 kw wind generators, first generation machines purchased from California. These were up and running near the school, and spinning impressively. Imagine the sound of a washing machine on top of a 120 foot(?) mast. Sound from the near by road pretty much drowned out the noise from the machines.
Inside the school, a computer screen in the main hallway shows real time readouts of wind speed, direction, and power generated.
Maybe a 100 or more activists, business people, regulatory types, and interested
farmers and landowners were in the group. We listened to a presentation at the
high school, had time to look over the schools turbines, and then loaded into a
biofuel powered school bus for a short trip to the new commercial turbines looming in the fields not far away.
I sat next to a representative from Sen. Carl Levin's Lansing office.



The important thing to emphasize is scale. The new generators are 1.6 megawatts in capacity, and with the blades in place, stand almost 500 feet tall. The blades are something like 300 feet across.
They are, to me, graceful and aerodynamic. More like Brancusi sculptures than
industrial machines.



We got a lecture from an employee of John Deere, the Ag equipment company that
is behind this project. Apparently they are getting into wind in a big way - which is heartening. He was a salt of the earth type guy, and totally in to what he was doing.
(note the size of the step ladder on the blade behind him)



The farmers in this area are being compensated with a yearly lease payment,
he wouldnt give us the exact amount. Their fields were going to be completely
put back the way they were before construction, decompacted, etc - with a small
access drive to the base of each wind turbine.
There are a total of 32 turbines, some 50 mw in capacity - spreading over a
5 mile irregular area.



When these turbines go live in December, they will, he said, make no more than a gentle whooshing sound - much less than the older ones we had heard earlier.

I recommend to anyone, if you get the chance, to visit one of these
sites near you. Its a paradigm shifting experience.
The overwhelming feeling you come away with is that this stuff is very real, very
high technology. When the other small towns and landowners in the area
get a look at these things up and running, I predict there will be a demand for
every town to have their own wind farm.
Already, I have read that some of the more urban communities near Detroit are
allocating money to study the feasibility of their own giant turbine(s). Projections for
wind power growth are bright, but it may be that actual growth will
outstrip even the most optimistic predictions.

[Olney Blue]

1. Beautiful!!!!! Thank you for sharing this.

K/R

[Skinner]

2. These pictures are great.

Thanks for posting them. Very cool. I can't believe how gigantic those are. I'd like to see them someday.

[BobRossi]

3. I'm from the Detroit area and knew nothing about this..

None of the media carried a word about this. Thank you for sharring.

[emmadoggy]

4. They are becoming a more and more common sight here in the midwest...

And I agree with you that they are graceful-looking. And huge.

You mentioned the farmers being compensated...a few years ago, already, my Grandmother and uncle signed leases with a wind company (can't remember the name right now). I believe they are scheduled for the turbines to be constructed on their land in 2008. They have been getting a certain dollar amount already for being signed up and once the turbines go up, they will get more. I had a conversation with my Mom about the whole thing a while back, but I can't remember the particulars now. IIRC, it is a certain amount per turbine per year. Seemed like it would amount to several thousand dollars per year. I think the number of turbines you get depends on your land location and the wind conditions etc. It's quite interesting and is getting to be very competitive - there has been more than one wind company in the area vying for leases from the farmers. I believe some of the neighbors around my grandmother and uncle ended up switching to a different company, but I think my relatives decided to stick with their original one.

They are definitely a cool and interesting thing to see.

BTW, awesome pic with the rainbow!

[amerikat]

5. Wind power is a silent revolution. No pun intended.

Wind farms seem to be springing up everywhere. Great pics too.

[hunter]

6. Did you get to stand under one that was running?

I found it terribly disconcerting. It's just not right that something so big moves like that.

This is a reasonable way to make electricity, especially in places like California where very large scale water transfers can be used to modulate demand. In the midwest there are some very good possibilities for using heating and cooling systems to modulate demand.

If I was a landowner renting out my land for these things I'd rather be paid in kilowatt hours than dollars because I don't think the dollar is stable. Ten years from now a kilowatt-hour will still be a kilowatt-hour, but any old metal quarter might be worth more than a dollar.