Thursday, September 01, 2005

Windmill Impact

Mike Martin and I were driving along the road in rural ND when suddenly a field of windmills appeared on the horizon. I asked him if his bank had done anything with wind power or financed any farmers that were renting out their land for wind farms.

Mike told me, “We’ve had several who have looked at the economics of it. I believe that the wind field that we are going thru has about 90 windmills. The company is paying around $400/month/windmill and you can put one on every 40 acres.”

That comes up to $120/acre, which is much more than this ground will make year in and year out with either cattle or crops. It is a wonderful alternative use for the land, provides desperately needed construction and maintenance jobs in very rural areas and provides us with an alternative, renewable energy source.

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