Welcome to Rock Port, Missouri but don’t let the name fool you, they are known more for their wind than their rocks. On Wednesday, Rock Port announced that it is first 100% wind powered community in the United States.
What does 100% wind power actually mean?
It means all the power that the community of 1,300 residents uses comes from that wonderful natural resource you can,t see, the wind. The four huge, I mean these things are gigantic, wind turbines actually produce more electricity than the town uses. And there are plans in the future to send that excess electricity to other areas.
Not only do the turbines provide electricity for the residents but they can also make them money. Residents can make anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 by leasing part of their property for wind turbines. For those of us in Northern California, when was the last time SMUD or PGE paid you for anything? Never last time I checked (Unless you are selling power back to them).
And to top it all off, the huge turbines are attracting visitors from all over providing some tourism revenue to the small town.
Original Post Via Science Daily
The GGG View
Lets list off some pros here:
- Town using 100% renewable energy
- Using excess energy to power other areas
- Residents making money by leasing land for wind turbines
- Turbines generating additional tourism revenue for town
Cons:
- None other than having to stare at those turbines everyday.
Windmills have been around since like the first century. It is kind of sad that it has taken like 2000 years for the first town in the US to be 100% wind powered. But hey better now than never so I give credit to Rock Port and the state of Missouri.
Now not every city in the US can be powered by wind because there are some places where is simply no wind at all. However I feel that we (the US) should take more advantage of wind power in places where it is possible. It seems that I am not the only one feeling that way as the US Department of Energy wants 20% of US electricity to be produced via wind by 2030. We have a long way to go as our current percentage stands at 0.5%. While other counties like Denmark and Spain have 20% and 9% of their electricity produced by wind respectively.
2 responses so far ↓
jameswharris // July 18, 2008 at 10:35 am
Be sure and look at the film at http://pickensplan.com – T. Boone Pickens, the oil billionaire is now backing wind. He has a nice graphic about the winds in America, claiming our country is one of the best for wind farms.
His wind maps seem to indicate that the middle third of the U.S. should be good for wind mills.
Now all we have to wait for is news of the #2 town going to wind, and then #3, and watch the list grow.
MZuvella // July 18, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hey James,
Thanks for the link, the site provides great some great info on wind power.
Picken is definitely on the right track and that ties into what I said in the post, we have the potential to do it we just have to execute. The only problem I see is what he was saying at the end, we have to get everyone on the same track moving in the right direction and that will really depend on our next president.
Thanks for the comment James, feel free to come back and comment anytime!