|
|
|
|
Windpower
Tue Jan 18, 2005
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook.
Using the wind to supply electricity seems like a good solution to our current energy
woes. It's available, renewable, non-polluting and becoming very cheap. But it has yet
to get its name in lights.
From her perch in the rural state of Vermont, commentator Peg Devlyn explains how
change may, in fact, be in the air:
Sometimes, a great idea is as close as the wind against your face.
That's how I felt when I learned about the farmers who are turning over some of their
acres for harvesting the wind instead of corn, or wheat, or cabbages.
They're planting impressive 200-foot tall wind turbines on parcels as small as an
eighth of an acre and they're paid just to let the wind blow . They collect about $2,000 a
year for a "green crop" that is just as natural as grass.
An acre of these wind turbines can generate enough energy to power 2,000 homes --
that's enough power for more than three average sized Vermont towns! And here's the
beauty of it -- your lights go on without releasing those nasty greenhouse gases of
fossil fuels associated with global climate change. And, at prices that can be cheaper
than those for natural gas.
A farmer just can't beat that with an eggplant!
Someday I hope I can buy electricity from a company with a name like Windy Hill Farm
or Breezy Ridge Electric. Or even look out my window and see my own wind turbine
turning in the breeze to keep to keep my computer running.
That's writer Peg Devlyn of Colchester, Vt. For more on wind, check out our website at
weather notebook.org. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount
Washington Observatory and supported by Subaru.
|
|
