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Turbines
10/01/2002
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook's weekly segment on
global climate change.
The U.S. has great potential for harvesting wind energy. As correspondent Curt Nickisch
reports from South Dakota, farm country is a natural fit.
The first mass produced devices to harness the wind to generate electricity were only a few
dozen feet tall, but winds are stronger higher up so today, wind turbines, like this one in
Minnesota stand almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Engineer, Duane Kiegel stands inside
the tower to tell a controlling computer to start turning the wind into kilowatts.
DK: It's not rocket science, you just press start. It tells you if the turbine's OK. It'll do
an automatic emergency line test and at this point it will go ahead and release the brake and
the rotor will start to turn.
As it does, Kiegel watches the gauge showing the steady rise of power output. This turbine can
generate 900 kilowatts under optimal conditions, but with wind changing direction and speeds
as it does, this turbine is expected to produce about a third of that with little
maintenance.
DK: These units are made to really take care of themselves. If the wind stops blowing they
just simply slow down, shut down completely if the wind stops blowing or goes low enough. Once
the wind starts blowing again, they just take off.
Even though the cost of wind power has decreased dramatically in the last ten years, the up
front expense is higher than for generators that burn fossil fuels. But, with no fuel to
purchase and low maintenance costs, wind power is becoming an increasingly competitive energy
solution. In Worthington Minnesota, this is Curt Nickisch.
The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Our series on
Global Climate Change is supported by the New England Science Center Collaborative and the Roy
A. Hunt Foundation.
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