Hi Peter,
Thanks for the link to the video which was fascinating. They have obviously
got the construction of them down to a fine art in the US.
In March I flew to Dallas, Texas. As we were coming in over the southern
United States, the chap in the seat behind me directed me to look out the
window at the enormous number of wind turbines in that part of the world.
There were thousands of them.
As I drove up from Dallas into the Panhandle, I passed large numbers of
them operating on the flat grass plains, sometimes as far as the eye could
see. In talking to the locals, turns out that Texas is the largest wind energy
producing state in the US.
Many land owners already had those small oil derricks pumping on their properties.
But with the oil drying up, more of them had turned to hosting the turbines.
When I asked what they thought about them, the response was they
loved them.
They were getting a better rate of return on a month by month basis
than the oil derricks whose returns were diminishing.
What was eye opening was the level of economic depression in many of
the rural communities in the Texan Panhandle and across the border
into Oklahoma. I passed through and visited communities that were
really doing it tough. With unemployment high and prospects limited,
many were living in poverty. The turbines were one glimmer of hope
and were providing work and money into some of these economically
hard-hit areas.
As I drove back to Dallas, my eyes popped when I passed one of the semi
trailers carrying just a single turbine blade that was parked at a stop on
the side of the freeway. Even though there were hundreds of
operating turbines in the surrounding fields, the enormity of a single
blade with respect to the size of the truck took my brain longer than normal
to comprehend what the object was that I was seeing.
Really impressive.
Thanks again for the video link and now it is clear to me how the
southern United States has managed to deploy so many in only a few
short years.
Best Regards
Gary
