Blow me down!

Wind energy really does seem to have potential, especially here in Kansas (and ESPECIALLY where I'm from, SW Kansas!). Free energy just coursing by...and drawing on it has no bearing on it, so it is truly renewable.

I know the current way we generate energy from the wind is a bit less than well-received. Environmentalists worry about bird migration and bats suffocating and the general dominance of big wind farm turbines on the landscape. None of that is to be discounted.

Personally, I like the wind farms; they look like something from a sci-fi novel. That's probably why my dad liked the look of them too...that, and he was seeing dollar signs. Farmers get something like $2,000 per turbine on their land per year, at least that was the going rate 7 years ago.

Still, cool sci-fi looking turbines aside, I think we're not thinking this through well. I mean by the time you build, transport, assemble...then operate these giant things--c'mon. It's like putting a V8 on a skateboard. The generator housing atop these turbines is bigger than a full-sized passenger van! The blades are over 30 feet long!

I think that we need a better turbine, if we insist on wind-to-electric energy. Like the satellite dish, I think we need to go smaller. A thousand little propellers would be nicer to look at than 100 giant windmills. If you could wear a beanie with a propeller like this, and it could power your onboard electrically heated jacket in the winter, your iPod, smartphone, laptop, etc...that would be great!

The energy of ocean tides is harnessed, again convert it to electricity. Maybe all these Kansas wheat fields waving could likewise somehow be captured. All that back and forth has to generate static electricity. Maybe we can just run some kind of filament grid over a field and suck up some of that power?

Maybe we need to return to the original harnessing of wind energy and skip over electricity altogether. We could use windmills to turn:

• flour mills


• water pumps


• saw mills


• forges


• treadmills


• ceiling fans


• record turntables

...and doubtless, lots of other things.

I visited a bar that had belts and pulleys all over the ceiling operating the ceiling fans from one power source, an elaborate-looking Rube Goldberg affair that had me spellbound (and I wasn't drinking, either). I think it should be a staple in every home to have such a power transference mechanism like this to move the spinning of the windmill to the various speeds needed throughout a home. It would be cool.