Gray County Wind Energy Project

Location:  Between Montezuma and Ensign on Hwy US 56

Fee:  None

Photos Copyright Harland J. Schuster.  Please do not use without permission.

The land flattens out as you head southwest out of Dodge City on Highway 56.  Then, just as you've about settled in for your drive down this stretch of asphalt, with your seat reclined and the cruise control set at 75--uhm, er.... I guess that's 65 for all you Smokeys out there--something becomes visible in the distance which almost defies description.  Something is out there on the horizon, but what is it?

Finally, you behold the truly incredible sight of 170 wind turbines which are on both sides of the highway for several miles.

The color of the sky in the image at right is correct--not computer enhanced (which I consider cheating, but don't get me started on the whole "Digital for Digital's sake" photo debate).  I used a 500mm lens to compress the distance between the towers, and to crop the small portion of clouds with the dramatic red color at sunset.  Usually, if you try hard enough, and think long enough, you can create the image you want using the same techniques photographers used long before the invention of the computer, and painters used long before the invention of photography.  Sorry for ranting.

Windmills are common in Kansas. They've been used from the pioneer days to the present, mainly to pump water.  But the 170 wind turbines on 12,000 acres in Gray County, owned by Florida based FPL Energy, "aint your Grandpa's windmill", as they say.  These windmills  are huge, but they've got to be because they've got a big job to do.  Able to produce electricity with as little as a 9 mile-per-hour wind, these wind turbines, at peak production in a 25 mile-per-hour wind, will produce enough electricity for about 37,000 homes--all from the thin air, and without burning anything or creating a nuclear chain reaction.  The electricity produced here is sold by FPL Energy to Utilicorp, which then distributes the power on its existing power grid system.

The three bladed propeller, with a diameter of 154 feet, sits atop a 207 feet tower, and turns at a near constant 28 revolutions per minute.   Each turbine is individually controlled by an onboard computer which constantly senses both exact wind speed and direction.  Using this information, the computer rotates the head atop the tower, and varies the pitch of the blades to make maximum use of the wind conditions at the time.  If the wind speeds exceed 54 miles-per-hour, the blades are "feathered" and the unit shut down to protect the mechanism from over-speed.

In the image at right, you can see wind turbine innards.  The head or "nacelle" which sets atop each tower is about the size of a small travel trailer, though this is hard to grasp looking at them from the ground.  A generator and other mechanisms are located in each nacelle.  The power generated is then transmitted via a cable to a nearby electrical substation, where it's metered and sent out onto the electrical grid.  Through some "gee-whiz" technology, each tower can be monitored and controlled from either the individual tower or from a control center in Montezuma about 5 miles away.

So that's the technical side of the wind farm story, but there's another side.  Sure, the towers and turbines are huge--almost intimidating, but these machines have a strange elegant beauty to them.   And consider this:  Each sweep of the blade represents one less chunk of coal we didn't have to dig up, one small measure of oil we didn't have to buy from some unstable country half-way around the world, and a little less high-level nuclear waste we still haven't figured out how to deal with.  Will wind power ever replace these other forms of energy?  No, of course not.  Is the Flatlander some sort of Eco-nut who thinks electricity is a decadent evil?  Heck No!  I like my microwave as much as the next person.  The point is, if we can take an abundant resource--and wind is pretty abundant in Kansas--and turn it into useful energy, then why not do it.   Perhaps the Gray County Wind Energy Project will be only the first of many such projects in Kansas.  Due to the cutting edge technology used in wind turbines, construction costs for a wind farm are typically higher than for a coal or gas fired power plant.  Thus, the construction of wind farms often depends on the "Alternative Energy Tax Credit" to overcome the higher startup costs.  If you believe in clean energy, if you believe in renewable energy, and if you believe in less dependence on foreign oil, then support the tax credit.  Okay, Okay, I'll get off my soap box!   It's just that not too many folks realize how important this little quirk in the tax law is.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank Mary Wells, FPL Energy Public Relations, for taking me on a tour of the wind farm on one typically windy Kansas day.

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