Most of my life has been lived in places where the wind blows. Although we have some windy days around here, the wind isn’t as constant as it is in some of the places I have lived. I grew up in Big Timber, Montana, on the east slope of the Rockies, where the wind comes shooting down the Yellowstone River at speeds that set records at times. My father was fascinated with the weather and kept setting up weather stations. We never did find a type of Anemometer - wind speed meter - that wouldn’t get blown apart. it seemed like every time he’d say, “Wow! The wind is really blowing, let’s check the speed!” we’d go to check and the meter would be reading zero because the device on the pole had blown off. We did finally get some Dwyer hand-held meters that worked well. I remember clocking the wind at over 100 mph one day. There were days when the wind would pick the gravel off of the parking lot and cause paint chips on cars. Once I determined to make a kite that would stand up to the wind in our area. I used hardwood dowels for sticks and aircraft Dacron to cover the surfaces. We had to experiment to find a coated synthetic line that was strong enough to hold the kite. The result was a kite that didn’t blow apart in the wind, but we didn’t weight enough to hold it down. We had to tie it off to a car bumper. And the weight meant that it wouldn’t rise very high. After going up about 30 feet, it mostly just went down wind. As we played out more line, the additional weight held it down.

After going to college, we moved to Chicago for graduate school. That town has a reputation for wind as well. From Chicago we made our way to southwestern North Dakota. And yes, the wind does blow in Adams County, North Dakota.

It doesn’t take a genius to think that using the wind to produce electricity might be a good idea in the open prairies. Before electricity came to the area, a lot of the homesteads installed mechanical windmills to pump water. The devices were usually set on wooden or metal towers. The ability to pull a pump and fix a mill was considered to be an essential skill for a rancher in the first part of the 20th century. By the time we moved to North Dakota, the rural areas were electrified and many of the mills were rusted and crumbling due to a lack of parts and repair. There were a few working mills, but mostly the towers were signs of a by-gone era.

Wind power is a big topic in that North Dakota town these days. The county has approved a $350 million mega wind farm north of town. The Thunder Spirit project is set to produce 105 megawatts of wind energy to be sold to Montana Dakota Utilities. It could be a financial boon to the county, with a projected $875,000 a year to be paid in leases to landowners - a little more than $10,000 per year per tower.

The project is less than appealing to some landowners. Church members who work in town but built a beautiful rural home three decades ago stand to have their view filled with the windmills, with humming turbines and shadow flicker from the blades between them and the sun. Their beautiful rural view will be dramatically changed. I remember when they built their hilltop home. I wondered at the time how they’d live with the wind and they had a struggle finding windows that didn’t whistle on windy days. They spoke against the project at a public meeting, but it looks as if their voice was a minority and the project is on track to proceed.

This is a big project. We’re talking about 42 square miles of wind turbines.

Many of my North Dakota friends have resigned themselves to the idea that their home state will become industrialized in order to provide energy for neighboring states. The Bakken oil boom has already drastically changed life for folks in Western North Dakota. Like the windmills, oil wells produce income for landowners, but they don’t exactly preserve the scenic value of the landscape. There are more than a few people who love North Dakota because it is a place to get away from traffic and noise and pollution. At least it used to be that kind of place. Oil spills, deteriorating roads, dust, and radically altered landscapes seem to be the cost of life on the plains these days.

It seems as if our appetite for energy is insatiable. Each year we find a way to consume more and more and many of us have a buffer between ourselves and the generators that produce the electricity we consume. Still, what we do has an impact on others.

Adams County, North Dakota is where the big buffalo hunts ended. When the buffalo were hunted from the western prairies, that area was the last to be hunted simply because it was so far away from convenient access. The railroad didn’t reach the area until 1907. There was still active homesteading in the late teens of the 20th century. The population peaked in about 1930 and has declined ever since. The Great Depression of the 1930’s produced a 30% reduction in population. The Farm Crisis of the 1980’s reduced the population another 30%. We lived there in those years. We saw what happens to small towns when people move away. Since those days schools and churches have continued to close, main street businesses have been boarded up and there is a general sense that communities are dying. Anyone who proposes a $350 million project will get the attention of the folk.

But nothing is free. There is a cost to the development. It appears it is a cost the country is, for now, willing to pay.

Meanwhile, I for one, am interested in continuing to figure out ways to use less energy. One can’t help but feel that we are consuming more than our fair share.

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