Blowin' in the wind

The Smoky Hills Wind Farm wasn't there when I rode east on I-70 through central Kansas last Sept. 3.

So imagine my surprise on the afternoon of July 25 when I saw acres and acres of 260-foot-tall wind turbines arrayed along the north side of the interstate about 25 miles west of Salina.

It's the biggest wind farm I've seen since my first encounter with wind turbines back in the mid '90s west of Palm Springs, Calif.

The Smoky Hills project isn't expected to be complete until later this year. Phase 1, which consisted of 56 turbines on 10,000 areas of Lincoln and Ellsworth counties, went online in February. Phase 2 will take the wind farm's electricity generating potential from 100.8 megawatts to just under 250 megawatts - enough to power about 45,000 homes.

The Associated Press reported that Phase 1 construction employed between 225 and 250 workers.

Once complete, the AP reported last December, Smoky Hills would be the fourth wind farm in Kansas. The other three were cranking out 363 megawatts. Kansas wind farm projects being developed this year are expected to raise the state's wind power capacity to 900 megawatts, the AP said.

I noticed several trucks hauling the huge turbine blades as I rode north on I-25 from Kansas City last month and suspect they were headed for Smoky Hills or another of the wind farms under development in Kansas.

Given my motorcycling experience in Kansas, it makes sense to harvest the wind there. I can't count the number of times I've ridden up and down I-70, leaning into a strong crosswind.

They say you can see them from 20 miles away on a clear day. I don't recall how far away I was when I first noticed the big white turbines, but I was astonished at the scope of the project. I rode past turbines for miles and miles, cresting each hill to find a fresh vista of turbine towers marching off to the horizon.

It was an inspiring sight and I felt like I was looking at the leading edge of America's energy future.

The AP cited a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratories that Kansas has the potential to produce more than 7,100 megawatts of wind energy, providing up to $7.8 billion in economic benefits, including 23,000 temporary construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs.

Even so, I found lots of stuff on the Internet from people violently opposed to the wind farms. Some arguments were based on aesthetics - complaints that the turbine towers ruin the view of the prairie. Others grumble darkly that Kansas landowners are being exploited by big evil corporations. None of them struck me as compelling.

TradeWind Energy, the company developing the Smoky Hills wind farm, says the completed project will have more than 120 landowners participating and collecting royalty payments from the turbines. They don't say how much the farmers will make and I'd still searching online for that information.

The turbines are spaced about 1,000 feet apart and counting all land for roads, turbine foundations and maintenance buildings, take only 1-2 percent of the farmers' land out of production.

TradeWind Energy says the project will offset about 450,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, 1,500 tons of nitrous oxide per year and 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a year.