Wind Turbines -- An Eyesore?

Her attitude is to get people to take the small steps in being environmentally active. Steps like turning lights off when you aren't using them and using more compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). She was really focused on giving kids energy conservation tips, knowing that they'd take the information home for the whole family to learn from. First I pointed out that perhaps the committee should also talk about LED bulbs because they are brighter, use less energy and work with a dimmer switch. Then I suggested she urge people to the next level of action. Further, she needed to open her mind to what small steps were because everyone is at a different level of environmental awareness and action.

Being new to this whole way of thinking she didn't quite grasp what I meant by urge people to the next level of action. What I mean is that if someone takes no energy conservation steps right now, turning unused lights off is the first step. And if someone turns the unused lights off and uses CFLs or turning the heat down a few degrees, then their next step might be not driving the car as much or making their next car a hybrid. But for people like me who already live an energy conserving lifestyle and have a solar array, the next step might be adding wind power where we can get a steady supply of energy; at my house I have a 24x7 energy supply.

She understood the first couple of examples I took her through, but she hit an objection with the third example. "Wind turbines at everyone's house would be an eyesore!, she offered." No more than, and maybe less than, the power lines that march down our road, or the distribution lines that lace the countryside and through our mountain scenery. She started to see my point, recognizing the ugly scares she is so used to, we all are so accustomed to, detracting from our views for greater stretches of space than the lone wind mill at a house, or at every house.

Maybe not every home can afford or justify a wind-powered generator. Maybe small, local generating plants could be built to feed electricity to the homes and businesses in an area. With local generators you avoid the line loss of sending electricity miles to its final point of use. That's energy conserving right there. And alternative energy is a proven source of electricity that will pay for itself quickly, and in the meantime giving people a reliable power supply.

I'd like to see more businesses, like hotels and restaurants, make alternative energy generators part of their building or renovation plans. How efficient to place the wind turbine and/or solar panels when you are designing the exterior of your building! And to site electric panels and batteries for the best efficiency of design and use will save you even more money than adjusting for them later.

Adjusting our thinking from accepting the parade of power poles and lines across our landscape to desiring the individual or clustered electric generators at homes and offices would be a big step in the right direction. That change of mind will help us all be more energy aware and conserving. Each of us can better control our energy costs if we generate our own electricity from free sources like the sun and wind.

When you trade power poles and wires across your vista for a wind turbine at your hotel, home or office, you are trading an eyesore for a source of independence. That independence gives you power -- the power for living and the power of self-reliance. And saves you money too.

Wind turbines an eyesore? Not at all.