Inherit the Wind

I've been blogging about wind power pretty regularly ever since Carleton installed a wind turbine on their campus. I find turbines fascinating to watch (they're not exactly windmills, as they don't mill anything, but I do think windmill is much better sounding than wind turbine). They also seem to have no downside. Even their biggest problem, that they tend to kill a lot of birds, has been solved by slowing the rotating speed of the blades.

Wind seems to be coming into its own right now. Washington is the 7th biggest state for generating power from wind. And this article in the NYT today pretty effectively argues that industrializing countries like India and China can choose wind and skip the pollution of coal.

I should mention how backward Sen. Kennedy is on the issue. He's opposing the Nantucket Sound wind farm, on the grounds that it hurts his view, I suppose. Both his Republican challengers for the Senate (not like they're likely to win) are in favor of the wind farm and the Democratic candidate for governor is also in favor. He also swept the primary on the Cape and on the Islands. Putting the wind farms at sea is even better than on land: the likelihood of killing birds is much smaller and the wind is much more regular.

(image of the Carleton wind turbine by David Dyer-Bennet, a Carl alum. Click to make it bigger)