Wind Power

Yesterday I went up to North Mountain, where Future Generations, our employer, is located. The wind was blowing strongly enough to turn the windmill, which generates electricity and feeds it back into the grid when there is an excess over the amount that Futures draws for its own use.

Industrial wind power is a big issue in the county because a private consortium is struggling for the permits it needs to place a long line of windmills on the ridge to the south of town. Opponents of the project express scepticism about the true viability of wind power; fear of its aesthetic impact and its deterrent effect on tourism; distaste for the number of birds and bats windmills kill; and suspicion that the true motive behind the project is the tax breaks and subsidies that the developers will reap.

Some just plain resent the money that the landholders who own the ridges will make from the leases, given that the impacts will be shared more widely than the money will.

In the San Giorgino Pass near Palm Springs, enormous white towers fill the air with a resonating hum. They don't look ugly, once the eye gets used to them; they are better-looking than a row of utility poles. On the other hand, in the pass, the wind blows constantly. Some say that in an area with intermittent winds, the contribution that wind power makes to the energy budget is so modest that the adverse impacts outweigh it.

The single windmill on North Mountain is yellow, and there's a smiley face painted on the tale of its vane. When the wind is up, it shakes and rattles, and you wonder just where the vane might land when the whole thing breaks loose, with a whap, not a hum.