I remember my family’s first out state trip to CA when I was in second grade, and vividly I remember when the van drove through the desert passing hundreds of wind turbines that were foreign and surreal at the time, as I later found out was the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm. Coming from Michigan I had never seen so many windmills, and later after living there I just figured California seemed like an anomaly compared to the rest of the states, but this past week I have a renewed faith in our Midwest region and am excited that the possibilities now exist as we are investing in renewable energies.
My hope occurred after passing through the wind farms near the edge of the border of Iowa and Minnesota. Though I didn’t think I would be enthralled by these structures, I was like a curious child speechless, in awe of these massive white anomalies. “How were they constructed? How did they get there?... this is amazing,” as I thought to myself continuing to stare at them. Erect at over 300ft, with blades probably over 200ft in length, I stopped on the side of the road, still sweaty from biking; for a brief moment, I realized and felt that we are indeed in a new era. Though news would seem to tell me otherwise, as coal plants are continually being approved for construction, such as the recently approved $2billion coal plant on the west of Indiana.

I am a bit disillusioned as I’m not going to claim that I know what Indiana is doing, that’s why I am on this trip, but the little bit I know continues to support a system that still isn’t healthy to the people who breathe in the matter, this includes other parts of the region as well. So I was pleasantly surprised about the Midwest proliferation of wind turbines going up since we started the trip. Along our route when we would tell people of our quest for sustainable practices, in the most random places, the feedback we received has been surprising, as we have now heard of the wind farms north of Illinois, south west WI, MN, and even plans for the west of the home state, Indiana.

Over the next couple of years the southern state of Minnesota will have hundreds of wind turbines generating electricity for hundreds of thousands of people, and as I read more about wind energy in general, though we currently use only 1% of our power through wind, the number could be over 20%! Now if we could also diversify our input from solar, geothermal, biomass, we could get off of our use of nuclear, and wean ourselves away from coal and gas.

Ironically, a French company owns it, and the parts are probably from a different country as we have been behind in green manufacturing, but nonetheless, it is a sign that we could be weaning off or at least replacing where we get energy, as coal continues to emit particulate matter and nuclear energy waste is undetermined. Yeah wind!

Resources to check out:
I found this very helpful in understanding the basics of wind energy:
http://www.awea.org/
A good resource for policy and law in the Midwest region concerning environmental issues:
http://www.elpc.org
Here’s the info on my childhood surreal experience in one of the california wind farms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Pass_Wind_Farm