My Desultory Blog

While driving north and south on I-65 through Indiana the past couple of days I was amazed to see the change in landscape … wind turbines everywhere. We (my daughter) took a few photos while we were driving by and figured I would try posting them on Posterous and see how they display when forwarded automatically to my blog.

These particular wind turbines were built and are operated by Horizon Wind Energy, a Houston-based renewable energy company. The 121 turbines comprise Phase I of the Meadow Lake Wind Farm in White County, Ind., powering the equivalent of 60,000 homes.

“There are five things we look at when deciding where to build a wind farm,” Horizon project manager Jeffrey Nemeth told me earlier that day. “You need wind, access to transmission lines, community support, electricity demand and land — preferably agricultural.”

Horizon pays farmers $4,000 to $8,000 per year to use their land, building turbines and access roads through the fields. Another 66 turbines are scheduled to go online in the next three weeks, and the company will have all four phases of the project completed by October. The full 303 turbines will generate somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 megawatts, enough to power 300,000 homes.

Posted via email from richc’s posterous