Winds of change

More than corn is sprouting in Indiana this spring.

By David Cawthon

Because there was no mass-scale build of wind generators in Indiana before Benton County, wind businesses were skeptical about building a large-scale wind farm.

Harry Hoover, a retired teacher from Benton Central High School, found himself fascinated with the possibility of a wind farm near his hometown when he heard rumors at county board meetings. Hoover filmed and took numerous photographs that chronicled the construction of the wind farms.

“It’s always windy here,” Hoover says. “They [wind energy companies] didn’t take our word for it, though. We are a rural community but don’t let that fool you. We are a high-tech farm community. We have GPS in our tractors.”

He says geological survey towers were constructed in southern Benton County near Boswell, Ind., to determine if the county was a viable, wind-energy source.

“After they took the readings from the first tower, it said the wind was blowing all the time,” Hoover says. “They said, ‘No, no. It’s faulty.’ So they put up a second one, and it said the wind was blowing all the time.”

With positive readings, General Electric constructed 87, 1.5 megawatt generators to form the Benton County Wind Farm. They all were finished and running by May 2008, marking the beginning of harnessing clean wind energy in Indiana. The project created hundreds of new jobs and brought business to the tiny town of Earl Park.

Hoover says workers rented all the houses in Earl Park, and all motels in Fowler were full.

Workers also poured into the local bar and grill, Stan’s Pub, at the end of the workday after toiling in the fields with the generators. Hoover says truck stops around the county were filled with 15 to 20 semi trucks waiting to travel to their assigned work site, loaded with massive 126-foot propeller blades and segments of 262-foot generator columns.

“Sometimes there would be 17 to 18 trailers on the side of the road towing these massive generator parts,” Hoover says.

During their time in Benton County, construction workers poured money in to the local economy, but when the project was finished, many left. Hoover says some are still in Earl Park because of the new wind farm south of town.

After the success of the Benton County Wind Farm, two other wind generator companies elected to construct the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm near Fowler, Ind., the largest town in Benton County with 2,305 residents. The town has a modest downtown area, reminiscent of the 1930s, which houses a few quaint shops and businesses.

Dave Dorsey, owner of Gifts n’ Things in Fowler, says living near the wind farms is an interesting experience.

“It’s got us a lot of attention and brought tourists in to see them,” he says. “America is in a bad economic position right now, but because of the wind farms, Benton County is doing really good. It’s lowered our property taxes, it’s brought a lot of additional revenue in. I think it’s great.”

Dorsey says the workers have supported the retail stores, grocery stores and restaurants.

Across the street from Gifts ‘n Things at Benner’s Bar and Grill, Phil Benner serves drinks to people tired from the day’s work. “There’s a lot of people in town now,” Benner says. “They got to live somewhere, they got to eat somewhere, and they got to go out, so yeah, it’s helped everything.”

The wind farms haven’t only helped local shops and stores in Benton County but have also created new green collar jobs. Dr. James Eflin, the natural resources and environmental management chairman at Ball State University says America should cut off its addiction to old industries and embrace green jobs.

“Things that will bring about new jobs and new businesses as opposed to just perpetuating the old things is the way of the future,” Eflin says. “Green jobs … those are 21st century industries, not early 20th century industries. We can’t keep dragging the 1920s with us.”

The wind industry not only creates construction jobs for those who erect the generators, power lines and grids but manufacturing jobs as well. A major benefit is that these jobs can’t be outsourced because turbine columns and propellers are too massive to be manufactured elsewhere and shipped overseas to the U.S.

Each generator in Benton County stands about 262 feet tall and has three blades that span about 126 feet. When a blade points straight up to the sky, the tower totals 388 feet. Unlike the wind turbines 30 years ago, these modern, gentle giants barely produce any noise, and only make a ‘whoosh’ sound as each blade passes toward the ground.

Wind turbines were not always as large, quiet or bird-friendly like the ones in Benton County. Early wind turbines were more of a burden than a blessing.

Wind energy became popular in the early 1980s in California. The Altamont Pass, located one hour east of San Francisco, is a mountainous area that contains the world’s largest and oldest concentration of wind turbines. According to eoearth.org, the energy price increases of the 1970s spurned the need for alternative energy sources, so construction of the Altamont Pass Wind Farm began in 1981. The wind farm consists of about 4,800 wind turbines that spin quickly and low to the ground – a deadly combination for birds of prey that populate the area. As an indirect result, the Altamont Pass Wind Farm kills more birds than any other wind farm in the U.S. Consequently, Benton County’s wind generators are spaced further apart, are much larger and spin slowly so that birds can easily avoid the propellers.

Eflin says that cosmetically, modern wind farms are more attractive.

“I think that these elegant posts that they have now are really elegant,” Eflin says. “The ones in California just looked ugly. I’m not surprised that people didn’t welcome them with open arms.”

Unlike California, Indiana was not regarded as a state with wind potential, and it took a while for companies to embrace the idea of Indiana as a wind state.

“Six years ago, I would have told you that we didn’t have a future in wind,” Eflin says, “because most of the projections of the wind capacity at that time were based on studies that were completed around 1990. I used to tell my class we’re never going to have wind farms in Indiana.”

Eflin says a study done in the early 1990s by the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzed the Midwest for wind energy potential and concluded that Indiana, Illinois and Ohio didn’t have any wind potential. The old technologies used to construct the wind maps flawed their results. In 2008, new technologies have enabled the development of wind turbines in Illinois, Ohio and Indiana. Illinois generated 571 million kilowatt-hours of energy in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration. If Ohio’s wind energy development keeps expanding, the state could benefit from $7.6 billion in revenue from wind by 2030. The first data for Indiana wind energy will be available around May, the one-year anniversary of the Benton County wind farm.

Because of Benton County’s success, wind fever is spreading throughout Indiana. Recent talks of constructing generators are underway in a number of Indiana counties including: Fountain, Grant, Hamilton, Howard, Madison, Montgomery, Porter, Randolph, Tippecanoe and White counties. At least 15 Indiana counties have wind speeds that match those in Benton County, making future wind development in Indiana a likely endeavor.

Wind energy development in Indiana is beginning to attract more wind companies to the state. Brevini USA, a wind turbine gearbox manufacturer, announced in October 2008 that it is relocating its company headquarters from Chicago to Delaware County, Ind., bringing 455 new skilled jobs to the area. During a public conference on March 25, 2008 at the Horizon Convention Center, the company said it would invest $62.5 million in the new operation.

“Wind is here, and it’s here to stay,” Eflin says. “Wind is commercial right now. Long after coal, oil and natural gas are gone, the wind is going to keep blowing.”