North Powder Wind Mills.

I went to high school in North Powder, Oregon. Home of the Badgers. The building it’s self was built of granite blocks. The joke was that any other building material would have blown away. I hated the winds there. Worse than boring teachers, I hated the droning of the wind. The little valley my home was in didn’t have enough wind, though only 14 miles distant, that neither myself nor any of my siblings ever flew a kite that I remember.

I go to Eastern Oregon whenever I can. Last year I noticed some dozen wind turbines some miles back of my old school, when viewed from the freeway. This June I noticed what I guessed would be 2 dozen. Last week I think there were 4 dozen. I was told "over 50’.

I asked a laconic waitress what she knew about them and she said, "there are going to be a lot more" and fetched my coffee.

One of the local farmers told me that Union County had welcomed them and that Baker County had put up bureaucratic barriers so that even though the wind blows on both counties evenly all of the turbines are indeed smack on the Union County side of the line. I don’t know the real cause but the local farmer could be right on.

Another farmer told me each turbine brings in $1200.00 per month to the land owner. He has a place on the Baker County side and is disgruntled.

Someone else told me each turbine could supply enough energy for 1600 homes.

Patsy was told that the outfit running the turbines bought a home nearby because the owners didn’t like the hum. Again not confirmed.

I do know for a fact that these towers were put on sagebrush producing land, meaning pretty worthless real estate. Not every place lends itself to wind turbines, my home valley for instance. Other than this I know very little as fact.

Besides the $1200 rental per month per tower, a number I don’t actually believe, a road is scratched in to each tower, a power line is hung or buried, transformers are installed (this I know costs a lot) and then the tower is erected and then this huge turbine is mounted atop the whole thing. Even from a distance these things are enormous. These things cost lots of money to install. Maybe 1600 homes rings true and they could pay $1200 per month per tower easily. I’m not certain of my facts and don’t want you to quote them as facts, but it is damn big business.

I had an 8 hour car trip to chew on the wind turbines and what a good deal it is for Union County. Here is something that intrigues me, the energy company has leased the land to install the turbines, built the roads to service the turbines, installed the transformers and lines to carry the electricity away. Now why not put in solar panels? Use the same lease, service roads, same transformers and power lines. Any place that supports sagebrush gets lots of sunshine. Get twice the bang per acre.

This is what I thought about while I drove home and I’ve done no research on the subject, but to me it seems possible to meet the goal of energy independence if we try. 1600 homes will supply enough energy for 200 North Powders plus most of the country and there is plenty of wind and cheap land for more turbines. I know there are problems but so too does oil use have problems.

When I got back into radio range I heard that Al Gore had claimed we could become energy independent in 10 years and next I heard Rush Limbaugh say the price of energy would go up. Rush is right whether we go with renewable or not, Al Gore’s plan might bring some dollars to God’s forgotten places such as North Powder rather than Gods forgotten places such as Iraq.

We can become energy independent if we try. We can’t do it if we let oil companies help.

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler