- BIRDS LANDING, Calif.
(AP) -- Environmentalists say dozens of turbines that rise 100 metres over
wheat fields and herds of sheep represent the future of wind energy - and
a model for overcoming the shortcomings that have kept wind from threatening
the dominance of fossil fuels.
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- The High Winds Energy Center, completed in December in
the rolling hills between San Francisco and Sacramento, features turbines
that can swivel with the direction of the wind, produce energy even if
the wind is blowing less than 13 kilometres per hour and generate 20 times
as much energy as earlier machines.
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- This new wind system, along with similar ones being built
elsewhere, promises to produce electricity at competitive prices - all
without disturbing surrounding farms and wildlife, two of the obstacles
for wind power today.
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- The 90 turbines at High Winds can generate 162 megawatts
of electricity, enough to power about 75,000 homes, according to Florida-based
FPL Energy, which owns and operates High Winds along with 30 other wind
facilities in 10 states.
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- "This is the future of wind power," said Ralph
Cavanagh, energy program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The wind farm is becoming a productive part of the local community.
It's not an interloper that threatens them."
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- Environmentalists have championed wind power for decades
because wind is a free, renewable, non-polluting resource.
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- But since the first large wind facilities were built
in the early 1980s, they have run into technological, economic and political
barriers. Early versions didn't produce electricity efficiently enough
to compete with oil, coal and natural gas. Communities complained that
small forests of turbines marred the landscape, and environmentalists fretted
that the blades were killing birds.
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- The new wind farm, in the Montezuma Hills north of the
Sacramento River, has overcome such issues, environmentalists say.
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- High Winds' turbines are taller, more powerful and more
efficient than older turbines, which means they can generate more energy
with fewer machines. Each turbine generates 1.8 megawatts.
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- On a recent morning, the towering turbines' 38-metre
blades turned steadily, with little noise, in wind of about 16 km/h.
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- Many wind farms built in the 1980s are retiring old machines
and replacing them with newer, more efficient models similar to those at
High Winds, whose turbines were developed by Denmark-based Vestas Wind
Systems.
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- High Winds hasn't run into the kind of opposition plaguing
other wind energy projects, such as the offshore towers proposed near Massachusetts'
Cape Cod, where residents worry that 40-storey turbines would harm ocean
views, seabirds and tourism.
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- In fact, landowners in the agricultural Montezuma Hills
welcome the extra income - FPL pays between $2,500 and $4,000 US a year
to lease the space for each turbine, and the surrounding land can still
be used raise animals or grow crops.
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- Birds Landing farmer Ian Anderson calls the project "good
for society."
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- "It's more difficult to farm around (the turbines
and access roads), but it's not overwhelming. It's doable," he said.
"We're still farming the same as before the wind generators came in."
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- And unlike the wind farm in the Altamont Pass east of
San Francisco, where smaller, low-power turbine blades have killed an estimated
22,000 birds, High Winds' turbines rotate relatively slowly so few birds
get caught.
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- Projects like High Winds have benefited from government
incentives such as federal tax credits and state rules requiring utilities
to increase their use of renewable energy sources.
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- Environmentalists hope incentives and improved technology
will boost wind from its status as a minor player in the U.S. energy markets.
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- Even in California, which leads the United States in
wind power, less than two per cent of the state's electricity came from
wind in 2002, according to the California Energy Commission.
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- "With improvements in technology, wind power is
becoming cost-competitive with any other form of electrical generation,"
said Jan Johnson, a spokeswoman for PPM Energy, an energy wholesaler that
has already sold two-thirds of High Winds' output to cities including Anaheim,
Pasadena, Glendale and Sacramento.
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- "If you have a choice between any form of electrical
generation," she added, "are you going to choose one that generates
greenhouse gases, or wind power?"
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- Copyright © 2003 Canadian Press
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- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1860&ncid=737&e=10&u=/cpress/2004
0104/ca_pr_on_tc/profitable_wind_energy
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