Wind Turbines 001

Last week, Karla and I drove to Kansas to spend Thanksgiving with relatives. While travelling across the plains of Kansas we saw many wind turbines. There are so many on the landscape that I developed a fascination for them so I did some research. You would think something manmade that reaches as high as 400 feet into the sky would seem out of place. To me they didn’t seem to scar the landscape but are more aesthetically pleasing, especially when you think about the amount of pollution that they are saving from being put into the atmosphere.

WindTurbines001

Wind Turbines 002

Kansas is leading the nation in the number of wind turbines under construction. Kansas will have over 600 turbines by the end of the year with the capacity to power over 300,000 households.

WindTurbines002

Wind Turbines 003

I wondered what the farmers thought about having the turbines in their fields. I discovered that a typical lease can be as much as $5,000 per wind turbine per year. Spacing varies but about 10 to 12 turbines could fit in a section of farm land so if one farmer owned the whole section their family could make about $60,000 per year and still farm the land beneath the towers.

WindTurbines003

Wind Turbines 004

These turbines are strategically placed in high wind areas for best productivity. But before each turbine is put up the site is surveyed for species of interest. Surveys are done by trained specialists under US federal regulations.

WindTurbines004

Wind Turbines 005

We drove to one of the wind farms to take some photos. When you are close you realize the size of these wind turbines. The towers can be 300 feet tall with 100 foot long blades. This would put the top of the arc at 400 feet. They are pretty quiet but when we stand next to one on a windy day the swooshing sound was a little daunting. They typically turn at about 35 miles per hour which puts the tip of the blades at 200 to 300 mph.

WindTurbines005

Wind Turbines 006

There is some bird mortality from hitting the blades but not as much as you would think. A wildlife biologist and friend of ours spent this last summer researching the bird mortality on the wind farms located in Iowa and South Dakota. In this photo you can see a flock of geese flying overhead just in front of the rising moon. As we were watching, a flock of 30 Prairie Chicken got up and flew just under the blades of one of the towers. I was glad they didn’t get clipped.

WindTurbines006