I didn’t realize Michigan would be appropriate for wind power but after reading about the turbine in the thumb area I learned that our well known breezes are useful not only to cool us but to power our farms also. I remember traveling out West and seeing the gigantic turbines near the California and Arizona border and thinking how unusual and beautiful they were. Not everyone agrees with me but I felt I was in another country – I had never seen anything like that!
If Not Wind is an interesting site with facts and figures and our very own Michigan government publishes Wind Energy Siting Guidelines and Small Wind Electric Systems Guide just in case you’ve considered wind energy for your farm.
There are also turbines in Traverse City, two in the upper peninsula and hundreds of smaller wind generators throughout the state. I didn’t know that, did you?
I used to live in Tehachapi, California which is home to one of the largest wind farms in the country. The windmills are stacked all over the top of the mountains, and I found it quite beautiful. It was relaxing to take the mountain roads that wound through the fields and know that I was getting my power from something that wasn’t actively spewing junk into the air.
By: PeakEngineer on February 1, 2007
at 3:45 pm
Would that be the wind farm near Palm Springs? I’m a photography buff and always wanted to get pictures but never found a site I could safely pull off the expressway. I have vivid memories but photographs would have been nice too.
By: Cathy on February 2, 2007
at 4:12 pm
I drove past that wind farm once, but that’s about 3 hours from Tehachapi. It’s about 100 miles northeast of LA in the very southern tip of the Sierras, and I’m afraid I don’t have any good pictures from there (I’m not much of a photographer — I leave that job to my wife
By: PeakEngineer on February 4, 2007
at 3:54 am