Wind Power, Farmers, and Climate Change

I´m from Suttons Bay area of Michigan. At our own home we use wind and solar power, separate from the utility grid.

I´d like to show you what the wind industry looks like, a little bit about history and where it is, where it´s going, and the potential for here. (Handout)

People in wind power have a lot in common with farmers (now I´m not a farmer, but I do have a large garden and a couple of goats and maybe I´ll do some farming in the future) because we need a good amount of wide-open land and we make a valuable product that nobody wants to pay for. That´s the main problem with the wind industry in this country; nobody wants to pay us a fair price. So I feel your pain and suffering and have for a long time myself.

The farmer of the future-Rumania-loves his animals, he´s making all of his own electricity from wind power and some from solar power. He is not connected to the power grid, because the grid is about 10 miles away. He has no phone, so he doesn´t have to deal with the deregulated telephone industry and he doesn´t have to deal with the deregulated electric utility industry (—of course it´s not really deregulated, it´s just changed). We helped on a project to get him powered up for electricity. He´s an organic farmer, just by his history and uses very little, almost no fossil fuels in the production of his crops and he makes organic cheese and lots of vegetables. He has a pretty pleasant life.

This is the future I think.

This tubular tower is typical of a small scale, home installation. It can make enough power for an average home. It works reliably; it works well without much maintenance at all. It´s just not cheap to install.

Q: Those trees and those hills aren´t a problem?

Response: Well, they´re a little bit of a problem. Of course we were paying attention to the prevailing winds, the trees are on the side where there is the least wind so we sited it appropriately. With small windmills, we´re not so concerned with the trees, we just take what we can get and it´s not price sensitive like the commercial ones.

All the farms (historically) were built with windmills, all around the world. This is a corn and wheat-grinding windmill from Denmark. There were actually wind farms 400 years ago. In Denmark windmills were used for water pumping and irrigation. When you think of traditional Dutch windmills, here´s one that´s actually working.

In recent history, around the turn of the century, northern European farmers used these kinds of mills — which really put out a lot of torque and a lot of power for grinding wheat and turning lathes. They ground grain and turned lathes and did everything that they wanted to do. There were thousands of these all around Denmark and they connected right to the main farm building and all of the equipment inside that building. The farmer pulls a rod and the flap pulls up and the windmill starts working. This is still working. I´ve seen this in operation. Because wind energy was so critical for the farm industry in Denmark, Denmark became the world leader in the industry.

Here´s an example of a research station that I visit frequently that has many different kinds of windmills, but you need to know that there are basically two different kinds of windmills. The traditional those are mechanical and used to pump water. They are not efficient for making electricity and don´t ever be confused about this. These are mechanical, working machines. The modern wind turbines are electric machines; they have an airfoil and are very efficient in taking the energy out of the wind. They are two distinct types of windmills.

This is another research station in Denmark in the early 80´s where they were testing all kinds of windmills. An approach that they started early on was a windmill with two different generators, a small generator for lower winds, and a bigger generator for bigger winds.

This picture is from 1982. It shows a typical farm in the early 80´s where the Danes were installing larger, commercial wind turbines. At the same time in the U.S. we were hearing that wind power doesn´t work. High school students built the largest windmill in Denmark in the early 80´s. It was a 2000 kW windmill. They installed it in a school; they pretty much built it by hand. It is still working, almost 20 years of operation. At that time we (people in the U.S.) were saying that wind energy doesn´t work, "We tried it, don´t bother." They even carried the blades and installed it by hand. There is a tourist area in the base of this windmill. They hired a famous Danish architect, the one who designed the Sydney Opera House, to paint it when they retrofitted recently.

This is a typical layout of rows of windmills on a farm in Denmark. This is how the industry evolved in the mid-80´s. These each produce around 200 kilowatts. They just slowly grew bigger machines. This 1982 machine is a 55 kW windmill that would make enough power for 20-30 homes and it´s worked reliably for nearly 20 years and has made it´s owner quite wealthy. When this was installed, I was here in Michigan trying to encourage wind industry and everyone I talked to in the electric utility industry and the MSU Electrical Engineering Department said, "Wind power doesn´t work. We tried it. Don´t waste your time." Then I would go to Denmark and think I´m living a separate reality, because I know it works.

We took the Danish machines and brought them to Palm Springs, California. Put them up in huge farms. Each machine could produce about 100 kW of power. Now, the average windmill can produce 1000 kilowatts. Now, one windmill can take the place of ten of these. That´s how much the industry has advanced. These will eventually be replaced with larger wind turbines.

We will not see this kind of thing (rows of windmills) in the Great Lakes Region because our winds come from many different directions. The reason they can be installed this way in California is because the winds hardly vary 5 degrees in direction throughout the year due to the mountain passes. The warming of the desert brings in the cold ocean wind and this blow like clockwork throughout the middle of the day and die down at midnight through early morning. This has really helped California, particularly during their energy crisis, because these winds blew hard when they needed power the most; right in the middle of the hot day.

Another picture of a 100-kilowatt windmill in 1986, they were able to install it with a single crane, assembling it on the ground first. Then they advanced to 200 kW and 600 kW windmills. One is used for preserving the shoreline and is right on the shore.

The latest models produce nearly 2000 kilowatts. The important lesson here is that farms like these, and farmers, built the wind industry in Denmark. In this region of Denmark, they are producing over 100% of their annual electric consumption with wind power. One hundred and thirty percent is last year´s figure. They are actually exporting power. There are times during the summer when the wind is blowing that they are generating four times what they consume and exporting that power to other regions. Farmers own almost every one of those windmills, not a utility company, not some bank in New York City.

In Denmark they have farm loan programs and insurance programs that allow them to simply go out and buy a windmill and install it and they can do that in a matter of 3 months. That is the nature of the wind industry now. We´re about 10 years behind that.

Q: Do they get tax credits for that?

Response: They are subsidized. It´s small, not very much now.

The philosophy there, particularly the German philosophy: wind power, clean energy is just like an agricultural product. We need a fair price to make a market. The Germans passed a law a few years ago and they said all wind power, all solar power generated into the grid shall be automatically taken by the electric utility and shall be paid 95% of the retail cost for the power. When they passed that one page law, they´ve installed, in 5 years, over 6000 windmills in Germany; 6 billion dollars worth of wind capacity. A simple law that says wind power deserves a fair price. Let´s make a market. Now they´re dominating the market in wind power.

There are several interesting windmills around, other designs. A 1-kilowatt windmill was shown as well as (Steve Smiley´s) the only visually resource-managed windmill towers. It is painted green, blue, and white to match the trees, sky, and clouds. It´s an 86-foot tower and the wind power is supplemented by solar voltaic power (to meet their needs.)

The Rumanian farmer´s windmill was installed with no fossil fuels, no significant mechanical tools. It was delivered with a horse and wagon and the grandfather dug the hole for the foundation. Everyone lifted it up, we jacked it up with a "come-a-long" and tilted up the tower with a "gin pole." We installed the windmill in two days. We buried the cables so that you can plow over them.

One Danish pig farmer owns more windmill capacity than all (the windmill capacity) of the state of Michigan. He also has some cash crops. He is making a lot of money on this. He is making $600,000 a year in revenues from electric sales. Farmers can plant and plow right up to the base of the tower. You don´t need roads. This windmill was installed very close to a road. In this state I really get irritated because everyone wants us to set the windmills back from the roads for some reason. We have to have these huge setbacks. The Danes are more practical, they just say, "Let´s put it where it´s out of the way." We have to argue and argue with township zoning boards to try to do something more practical.

A utility electrical engineer, one person can over see 260 windmills for the utility company. It´s not complicated, it´s not difficult. It´s not that expensive.

The Traverse City windmill landowner is a Michigan State graduate. He plants crops right up to the base of the tower. The utility was very cooperative. He has not had to cut the corn in six years to get to the windmill.

There have been recent installations near the Mackinac Bridge. (In that installation) we had to run power lines for a mile, at a great expense to the utility, because we couldn´t convince them to let us hook into the existing lines like they do in Denmark. The Mackinac community has been very supportive.

If we all work together there can be a great future for wind power.

(Referring to handout: The first sheet shows the minimum requirements. Two ways to have wind power: lease your land to a developer or own the windmill. Examples of farmland that is suitable were shown.)

There is great potential for wind power in Michigan and I think it has tremendous potential for dealing with the issue of climate change or global warming.

Q: Have you had any problems with birds?

Response: The only problem of any significance was found in the Altamonte pass where there is a high density of perching raptors on windmills that are not built anymore. We have not seen any significant impact. Windmills will kill a bird or two. I think on average in the summer they find one or two birds, but I do more than that with my car. It is an issue that we want to address, but it hasn´t been found to be a significant impact.

Q: Leland Townsend I´ve seen a chart that showed California gets the most wind and Michigan is down in the ranges around thirteenth or fifteenth?

Response: California is actually a lot lower down, below Michigan. It´s just that they have a critical climate there that really encouraged wind power in the early 80´s and public policy that drove the industry there. That´s what we need here in Michigan.

Q: John Furlow I´ve read that installed wind turbines is highest in California. I don´t know where Michigan falls in this.

Response: It´s all public policy based.

Q: If the landowner wants to do this, are there companies or individuals to work with landowners for installation?

Response: Yes, there are just beginning to be people who are doing this.

Q: Is the technology available or feasible to put windmills on skyscrapers?

Response: No, it´s really not recommended or considered practical. A skyscraper is not engineered to hold a large commercial wind turbine. They are quite heavy. It wouldn´t be significant; the size of the windmill you could put on a skyscraper wouldn´t produce enough power. It makes more sense to put it on the ground.

John Furlow: One thing that was interesting to me, were on the front page of the hand out are the safety requirements. If you have a farm, you can figure out how much area you have, how many wind turbines you can fit, and then the generating capacity. If we had a law like Germany´s and you received 95% of the 8 or 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, you could figure out what your income would be.

back to Climate Change & Agriculture presentations page