Wind Turbine Up!

We've lived in our house for eight years.  We moved from the city into the country.  When we first arrived, we wanted so much to use the wind at our place (lots of it) to generate power.  We looked into what it would take to put up a wind turbine, and it was prohibitively expensive at the time.  Further, it would have taken at least twenty years to recoup our investment.  It just didn't seem to make sense.  I'm all for being green, but you have to have some green too.

The Energy Trust of Oregon invited us to a seminar about a year ago and we learned that there were huge incentives for getting into wind now.  When we looked into it, it became clear that we could actually afford to do it!!  We also looked into how long it would take to recoup our investment, and it now is in the five to six year range.  That was all we needed to know.

It took us a while to get started on our project because of our wet spring.  We needed dry ground to pour the concrete pilings to support the tower and the cables that hold it up.  Then, there were the usual delays whenever one undertakes a construction project.  Finally, about a month ago we started seeing substantial progress toward completion.  It got very exciting.  Whenever the wind was blowing (usually), we kept thinking of how much power we'd be generating.

I'm happy to report that today, the turbine is up and poised to start generating power!

That little blue speck at the base of the tower is my husband's tractor.  The little structure off to the left is our pump house.  That should give you some scale.  It's 120 feet tall.  Ordinarily, it would be surrounded by green grass and weeds, but we've gone through a hot spell and so everything is brown right now.  I'd say that it's ugly, but it's so shiny, immense, and industrial looking that it's beautiful in its own way.

Of course, there isn't a breath of wind today.  The turbine turns in the little wind there is when it changes direction (like a wind sock does).  Even that little bit of movement is exciting.  I can't wait to get more wind and see the turbine spinning.  We're feeling pretty smug right now to be generating electricity and reducing our carbon footprint.