Despite This We Stay – Wind Turbines

I am fascinated by wind turbines. Not far from where we lived in California there were thousands of them, and they were always spinning. Spinning, spinning, spinning – day and night, summer and winter. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow stopped the trusty wind turbines. But when I pass the wind turbines along I-25 north of Walsenburg, it’s not very often that all four of them are spinning. Usually at least one, and sometimes all four, are just sitting there looking dumb. I say dumb because a wind turbine has one job that I know of, and that’s to let the wind turn your blades so you make electricity. If you’re not doing that, aren’t you pretty much just a big pile of concrete and fiberglass? Our I-25 wind turbines are brand new, and they cost over a million dollars apiece. If I invested that much moola in a machine, I’d be out there with a whip keeping those babies moving. Or maybe I’d put a little caretaker’s shack right there on site (for a caretaker of course), and when the blades stop turning on a turbine, he could climb up the ladder and give the blades a good shove to get them going again. But no, that’s not what’s happening. Sometimes they just sit there looking pitiful. Well, I got to looking around for reasons why a wind turbine’s blades might not be turning, and I came across some fascinating theories. One theory was that there is no wind. Not possible in Huerfano. Next? Another theory was that the wind might be too strong. Aw, come on. This is the ONLY job this machine has, and they want us to believe that sometimes it can’t perform because it has too much of a good thing? Didn’t the guys who designed these things look into what the weather is like in Huerfano County before they sent the “low wind” models to the job site? And by “wind too strong” the article I read said over 40 miles per hour. Heck, around here that’s about eleven months out of the year. Apparently, through a complicated process that involves computers and squirrels running on treadmills, sometimes a “we need power now – NOT” sensor relays the message that less power is required from the wind turbines. And that lack of power demand comes from Walsenburg. Hmm. I don’t know if you’re like us (I know, you’re hoping you’re not), but we cut back on our electric usage because the price keeps going up. And maybe the computers and squirrels are cutting back on the power because we’re not using enough. And then they raise the price of power because they’re not selling enough. Hey, I have a super idea. If the computers and squirrels drop the price of power, then we’d probably use more, which would put over four million dollars’ worth of wind turbines back to work. I’m willing to take the first step and twist all the light bulbs in our house back into their sockets. We’re about ready to start wearing padded suits anyway – and not for the reason you might think – because we keep running into furniture and door frames in our darkened house. We need to get those wind turbines spinning again. Let’s light it up Huerfano!