Wind Farms: Is T. Boone Pickens Right?

Mount Storm Power Plant

Today it is very fashionable to emote all kinds of drivel about “green” energy. The flavor of the month — wind power. Windmills are sprouting like weeds all along the mountain tops of the eastern seaboard. Ultra wealthy old-time oil magnate, T. Boone Pickens gets on TV touting wind power, and how it’s the end all be all.

When I started driving tractor-trailer cross country in 1986, one of the first trips I took was to Los Angeles, California. Never having been further west than Ohio, I was enthralled by all the new sites and beautiful scenery.

One of the most amazing things I saw on that first trip was located along I-10 in California. Between Thousand Palms and Banning, along either side of the interstate were hundreds of windmills. I was terribly impressed that in the late 80’s California was using windmills to generate electric power. Then I noticed that very few of the windmills were turning.

The thing about I-10 in California, east of Los Angeles, is that the wind never stops blowing. During that time, California was in a tizzy about not enough power, rolling brown outs and all the fun stuff that goes along with power shortages. I asked someone that lived in the area why the windmills weren’t in use, and they told me that they were old, it cost more to operate them than the amount of power they generated, and were too expensive to fix, so they just stood there locked down and rusting.

During that same time they were building more windmills along the hilltops along Route 99 north of Fresno. Over the next five years I noticed most of the time it seemed like only every other windmill was turning. Never did all of the windmills turn at the same time. All the while the state was still energy starved.

Now 10 years later windmills are once again “in”. The environmentalists who should be jumping for joy are complaining about birds and bats getting killed because the windmills are in the migration paths. The tourist bureaus and convention centers are up in arms because the windmills are ruining the scenery and chasing away the tourists.

The really sad part in all this is that just like California, some of the windmills turn while others are locked down. Only sometimes do all the windmills turn at the same time. You would think that if wind power is going to be the savior of us all, and make it so that we can shut down all the power plants that use coal to generate power, why isn’t every available windmill working at its maximum output?

In Mount Storm, West Virginia a great irony is being played out with the windmills. On the opposite side of the lake that cools the coal-fired power plant stands many brand new windmills. About half of them turn, the other half sit.

So are they our saviors or our eyesores?

Windmills Behind The Power Plant