Today, driving east on I-40 through the panhandle of Texas and the body of Oklahoma, I saw 3 wind farms. The two in Texas were moderately sized, perhaps 50 turbines each, and the one in OK was larger, somewhere between 100 and 200 turbines I'd guess. This is an ideal locale for wind farms, flat, treeless, and windswept. The turbines are magnificent: each blade is longer than the trailer on a flat-bed 18-wheeler. It was great to see those turbines facing into the wind and turning at uniform speed, generating clean electricity!
I've heard complaints to the effect that the turbines destroy the appearance of the landscape, but I find them much more appealing than the erector set towers that support the high-tension power lines of the grid. The fact that they give us non-polluting, non-CO2 generating electricity makes them beautiful.
Each turbine generates about 2 megawatts of electricity, so I saw about 400+ megawatts of electricity being produced today. Probably enough to completely power a small town or two.
There's plenty of room in these two states and in other states for wind turbines. Lets start installing them! Kudos to Texas and Oklahoma, both oil states, for moving in this direction.
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