Wind Power News: Missouri
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These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted.
Repair is in the air at Bluegrass Ridge; Wind turbine maker finds flaws in blades, calls for refurbishing
The Gentry County wind farm’s turbines are undergoing refurbishment in a national retrofitting program initiated after manufacturer Suzlon Energy Limited found cracks in the blades of its S-88 wind turbines.
Leif Andersen, vice president of sales at Suzlon, said the process for correcting the flaw is fairly simple.
“It’s a matter of strengthening some of the fiberglass on the blades,” he said.
The national retrofit program calls for the strengthening of 1,251 wind turbine blades, 930 of which had been installed by March, . . .
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Sullivan Co. wind project hinges on tax breaks
MILAN, MO. — Landowners in Sullivan and Adair Counties stand to make a lot of money if Tradewind Energy decides to go ahead with the Shuteye Creek Wind Project and build wind turbines on their land.
However, the company won’t build if it doesn’t win a contract with Ameren UE, and the development manager says they can’t win the contract without some big tax breaks.
Wednesday the Sullivan County Commission held a meeting to discuss just how many tax incentives it wants . . .
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Wind energy forums broadcast in nine cities
Nine cities will host public forums this summer in a series of statewide video conferences on wind energy potential in Missouri.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Energy Center will hold three discussions, and attendees in each city will be able to participate via video. The cities are Springfield, St. Louis, Columbia, Jefferson City, Kansas City, Kirksville, Maryville, Neosho and St. Joseph.
The first forum is titled “Harvesting Missouri Wind Resources” and will be held 5–9 p.m. June 25 via video in . . .
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Wind farms stir trouble in northwest Missouri
KING CITY, Mo. | Here in this northwest Missouri farm town, 27 industrial wind turbines have been generating more than electricity — health concerns, a federal lawsuit and a family feud, for starters.
The wind industry, which produces about 1 percent of the nation’s energy, has gained considerable purchase in the U.S, growing by 45 percent last year. The Department of Energy says wind could produce 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030.
In rural areas where wind energy has moved . . .
Wind energy or hot air?
Wealthy pseudo-environmentalists, busily producing their own trash quota while jetting from coast to coast, get all misty-eyed imagining flyover country paved with wind farms providing them energy. Why are these ill-conceived notions so trendy?
Wind farms are death traps for migrating birds. They’re costly to maintain. They produce noise pollution as constant and debilitating as truck-choked freeways. They look creepy on empty land, like those alien death-machines in War of the Worlds. They’re as big an eyesore as a field of . . .
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Wind turbines are the new symbol of Rock Port
ROCK PORT, Mo. — Clarence Schaffner knows wind power.
His father, Louis, crisscrossed Iowa and Missouri in the early 1940s, installing one of the earliest versions of a wind turbine. They called them windchargers.
Used mostly by farmers, the small devices generated six volts and cost about $50. Schaffner said they powered everything from the farmhouse to the chicken coop.
Times have changed, and so have wind turbines.
As Schaffner talked about the pioneer days of wind energy, four 250-foot-tall white towers — . . .
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Commission: Wind farm lawsuit improperly served
The Gentry County Commission will rely on a technicality in its fight against a civil lawsuit surrounding a new wind farm.
Charles Allen Porter filed the federal court lawsuit in late March against the commission and Associate Commissioner Gary Carlson. Mr. Porter alleged that Mr. Carlson assaulted him over his opposition to the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm located near King City. He also said the facility has harmed his family, destroyed his property and caused him to lose sleep. Several wind . . .
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Are wind farm turbines making people sick? Some say yes
Two brothers-in-law, a country road in northwest Missouri, a fistfight …
Surely it’s happened before, but probably never over wind energy.
Last year, 400-foot-tall wind turbines were erected near King City, some less than 2,000 feet from Charlie Porter’s house on his small acreage.
Soon the sounds from the blades swooshing through the air and other noise were driving Porter and his family crazy, he said.
“The sound gets in your head like a saw and you can’t get rid of it,” Porter said. . . .
Energy activists seek to put renewable-energy standard on ballot
Jane Gramlich takes steps to conserve energy whenever possible.
She and her partner, Steven Sloan, have switched to a high-efficiency heating system in their home in south St. Louis, near The Hill. They’ve switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs. They even hold potluck dinners at their home to engage friends in discussions of energy conservation.
Gramlich has now found a new way to try to make an impact on the energy she uses. She has begun collecting signatures as part of an . . .
Complete story (plus email and print links) »
Dispute over wind farm boils over into lawsuit
Wind turbines for energy in Gentry County seem to have also produced a fair amount of controversy, even of a physical variety.
A civil lawsuit — filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri — alleges that one of the county commissioners assaulted Charles Allen Porter over his opposition to the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm. The farm, which features 27 wind turbines that dot a pastoral landscape near King City, Mo., became fully operational in 2007. . . .
