Rob wrote: My biggest beef? Why the farm ground? and Why the airports? Banning Pass, in the desolate desert surrounding Palm Springs? Great place for windmills... Picturesque corn fields surrounding the county airfield? Not such a great place for windmills. Rocket science not required...

I'm guessing that thus far the wind farms have been private ventures, and private land in any single large quantity is, more often than not, flat ag plots. Who owns an entire ridge or mountain pass? It seems like those are usually publicly owned.

I'm cropshare renting a 160 acre quarter section of prime Iowa farm ground. There is a proposed wind farm that will go on Buffalo Ridge that runs through NW Iowa and I'm encouraging my landlord to sign up which he did. It is a private outfit that is lining up everything and will eventually sell to MidAmerican Energy. I buy some juice from them and also the local REC. MidAmerican is a big private outfit that has cheaper rates than the REC. Anyway, the deal is that the landlord will get $5 per acre per year for up to 7 years and if nothing happens the contract to tie up the land is over. They will put 1 turbine per about 80 acres. I think each will be 1.5 megawatts and be about 300 feet in the air. If they ever get constructed and going it will amount to about $100 per acre per year. They pay so much for the access driveway and so much for the underground wire getting to the grid. They will put the driveways in so as to not screw up the field for farming. I'd like the landlord to make as much as possible so I can keep renting instead of him selling the land for $8,000 an acre.

Farmers here signed 5 yr options to allow the energy company formerly known as Florida Light and Power time to test potential sites and develop their plan to see if it worked for them. In the past year 66 towers have been built and twice that many are planned. There were no negotiations with land owners only an invitation to participate in the project. Offers were snapped up by land owners who now will receive over $6000/tower per year. One neighbor has 12 on his land. The payment is based on a fixed rent paid annually plus a percentage of the value of electricity generated. The land is along a ridge rising abruptly 400' on the edge of the James River Basin south east of Aberdeen SD. It is 90% rangeland and full of rocks the size of a kitchen table and this is the first development ever seen in the area. Very lowly populated, and even those who live there signed up for the towers. It is 30 miles from the nearest paved runway.

dirtstrip wrote:Farmers here signed 5 yr options to allow the energy company formerly known as Florida Light and Power time to test potential sites and develop their plan to see if it worked for them. In the past year 66 towers have been built and twice that many are planned. There were no negotiations with land owners only an invitation to participate in the project. Offers were snapped up by land owners who now will receive over $6000/tower per year. One neighbor has 12 on his land. The payment is based on a fixed rent paid annually plus a percentage of the value of electricity generated. The land is along a ridge rising abruptly 400' on the edge of the James River Basin south east of Aberdeen SD. It is 90% rangeland and full of rocks the size of a kitchen table and this is the first development ever seen in the area. Very lowly populated, and even those who live there signed up for the towers. It is 30 miles from the nearest paved runway.

And regular jobs for the maintenance techs come with them, better paying then flipping burgers too. This sounds more like it, put them on terrain pretty much unusable for anything else, NOT near an airport. Mine is the rare exception, but I sure don't have an airport, just my little private strip. One huge benfit is the additional information on wind it gives me on my 400' strip, I often get two separate readings on the sock at the bottom 147 vert ' lower then the turbine at the top. The turbine is VERY responsive to changes in wind direction, and will continue to spin for some time after a gust.

So, if I see the turbine spinning x amount of rpm's, and the wind sock is hanging straight down, it tells me it is gusty and/or the thermals are popping and I'd better be on my toes, literally, on landing.

Wow!! Ok, after reading further and gathering more info that was posted after my reply up top and putting myself in a farmers shoes, I'm starting to like the windmill idea. If the numbers are pretty consistent across country, that some pretty good extra income if you have a large farm. No more worrying too much about drought or crop damage if you have an extra $50K to $???K coming in.

But, I'm still going to stand behind my word that too many windmills are an eye sore. Even if they are out in the middle of nowhere.

So I liken this to marrying an ugly wife but she come with a big check.

My take is 180 from yours..

Example :

On the way to Oshkosh and somewhere over Minn, and yeah they apparently have more windmills then anywhere else I have been.

So, here I am, motoring along in my homebuilt flying machine at 11,500, zipping along in the earths airmass that will take me to Mecca = Osh. I look down and that same airmass is spinning the blades of dozens of wind turbines.. I call that using all the resources god gave us to the limits of my fun meter.. YMMV.

Ben.

Two issues you should consider:

If an individual were to improve their cash flow per acre, the value of the land goes up, not down. Corn goes to $6/bu or you get $6M per tower, the results are the same. The owner makes more money and the owner will require more money to sell it. As more windmills go in, the $10,000 per acre for Iowa farm land will be the rule, not the exception.

The second item is the distribution of the energy produced. High voltage transmissions lines are expensive to built and have a very long lead time to completion. Think years. Costs can run up to $1MM+ per mile depending on terrain. I know of an area in SoDak where there are wind energy investment/development groups are trying to tie up the land so that they can develop a sufficient concentration of possible units in order to justify the development of a high voltage transmission line. The closest trunk to tie into the electrical distribution of the grid is but a mere 45 miles away as the Cub flies. It would take 5-10 years to get a de novo distribution system in place, if ever. The farther away you are from the lines on the map, the less likely there will be development. As a perspective, 45 miles is VERY long way to go. There is lower hanging fruit to pick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Unite ... erGrid.jpg

The economics are really simple. More money means more value and location, location, location.

The second item is the distribution of the energy produced.

That is why making anhydrous ammonia using electricity instead of using natural gas is being considered. U of MN is building a pilot plant at Morris MN to see how it pans out. Anhydrous can even be used as fuel. Can't find it right now but pretty sure I read that this outfit is using NH3 for fuel. http://www.hydrogenenginecenter.com/

dirtstrip wrote:So I liken this to marrying an ugly wife but she come with a big check.

I know a gal out near Peetz CO where they have 9 windmills.....I'll tell her what you said..but I will be standing back a bit!

Our volunteer fire department is made up of seven townships and two towns. It is located in the corner of four counties. In the last year I took it on myself to organize and with the help of others circulate petitions which I presented at a combined board meeting of the four county commissions involved. We now have a Fire Tax District which levies its own mills across all property and is equal per thousand for all property owners. Under the original arrangement each participating township in the fire district paid an equal amount of dollars supporting the fire department. This money is raised from property taxes and was part of each individual township and city budget. With the development of the wind turbines, estimated tax base increased in two of the townships by nearly 100 million. The year before that Trans Canada crossed these same two townships increasing taxable base in them by a conservative estimate of 25 million. All property, real estate and otherwise in the two townships before these two developments was at less than 30 million.
The plus now is that all seven townships and both towns in the fire district share in the tax benefit equally while lowering land and home taxes for everyone, instead of just those two townships. Twenty nine people showed up to vote at the special election to form the tax district. One voted against. He didn't trust another gov't entity, but its the same people that made up the previous volunteer board. The line item of fire dept expense will now come off each township and city budget and will be picked up by the new tax district.
I bet you guys thought I wasn't political.

As an aside here, the Trans canada pipeline carries the tar sand oil out of Alberta to refineries in Cushing Ok and east in to Illinois. It is some of the dirtiest, thickest ungreen oil anywhere. Thick as molasses and moves about walking speed through the pipe. Because they built that pipeline and paid to have transmission lines put in to their pumping station, the line now exists for the wind towers to get their juice out. Without the pipeline the wind towers were not feasible in that location. So, the dirtiest oil project made the clean one possible.
This same thing could be made to work near the pump stations of all 1600 miles of pipeline while helping pay for schools and roads and fire departments along the way. Damn, now I have to go national.

The problem is when the tower restrictions were imposed the big navigational aid was the NDB. My handheld GPS is good to within inches. The industry, both green-power and aviation need to get together to get the FAA to re-evaluate it's position.

Someone mentioned wake turbulence caused by windmills!? These don't produce thrust or power at least at the windmill end. They are turned by the wind, so I fail to see how they would cause turbulence.

cabinflyer wrote:Someone mentioned wake turbulence caused by windmills!? These don't produce thrust or power at least at the windmill end. They are turned by the wind, so I fail to see how they would cause turbulence.

Someone else mentioned turbulence caused by the Sierras, and they don't produce thrust or power either!

kevbert wrote:

cabinflyer wrote:Someone mentioned wake turbulence caused by windmills!? These don't produce thrust or power at least at the windmill end. They are turned by the wind, so I fail to see how they would cause turbulence.

Someone else mentioned turbulence caused by the Sierras, and they don't produce thrust or power either!

The comment was to "wake turbulence", not disturbances caused by mountains. I have flow past these wind farms in a supercub and didn't experience any adverse effects. (and yes they were spinning )

As a matter of semantics, I suppose you could also term the effects of the air down wind of wind turbines as a disturbance as well.
But you would in fact be wrong... Or at least NASA says so... They call it wake turbulence, and you can read all about said wake turbulence here:
http://www.arising.com.au/aviation/wind ... rbine.html
While certainly not the worlds foremost authority, I have flown around, in between, over, and under wind turbines, both stopped and spinning.
As I indicated in my previous post, the disturbance down wind of these towers is generally a non event, even for an unyielding over loaded ag aircraft. But it does not take an aeronautical degree to realize that with the correct wind direction and speed, over a larger farm the air at the down wind side is going to be a mess. Compounding factors would be the local geography, thermal activity, and the amount of turbines, because it is logistically impossible, to line them up in a fashion that minimizes their effect on each other for every wind direction.
I will also add for anyone tasked with spraying amongst these, that you need not be shy of a breezy day. In fact blowing off a job because it's breezy, in hopes of having it easier when the wind is calmer is a mistake in turbines, because in most cases they are locked down in winds over 7 mph...

Marty, thanks for the insiders view point. It also affirms that at a certain crop value, the chance for turbines being introduced is not likely. I guess here in produce country we won't be seeing turbines anytime soon
BTW, Jake called looking for 2 volunteers to show up a week or so early for herbicide, bugs, and other trickling in work. Probably be in your neck of the woods sooner than I thought.

Zane, why do you have to be so logical ? But here's a thought, Millions of miles of high tension, cross country lines travel in desolate locations. Some along ridges etc. I'm assuming (but will admit that I don't know) that the lines are privately owned, and the ground is on a right of way, over public land. Couldn't we use the same approach for turbines? and by same approach I mean same location, therefore negating the logistical problem posted above about getting to the grid? and even better yet maybe we at BCP through a concerted effort, design the first high tension towers with turbines in between or on top

Take care, Rob

Jake called looking for 2 volunteers to show up a week or so early for herbicide

Rob, If you'd spray Roundup with the plane, I bet you'd be in demand right now. Storms passing by Rockwell City right now.