Wind power takes a blow around Minnesota

StarTribune.com ^ | 1/12/10 | TOM MEERSMAN

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

ELKTON, MINN. -- Every sunny morning, shadows from the massive rotating blades swing across their breakfast table. The giant towers dominate the view from their deck. Noise from the turbines fills the silence that Dolores and Rudy Jech once enjoyed on their Minnesota farm.

"Rudy and I are retired, and we like to sit out on our deck," Dolores said. "And that darned thing is right across the road from us. It's an eyesore, it's noisy, and having so many of them there's a constant hum."

Just as they are being touted as a green, economical and job-producing energy source, wind farms in Minnesota are starting to get serious blowback. Across the state, people are opposing projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Opposition is also rising in other states. It's not likely to blow over quickly in Minnesota, which is the nation's fourth-largest producer of wind power and on track to double its 1,805-megawatt capacity in the next couple of years.

[DungeonMaster]

These massive wind farms have the potential to do a great deal of environmental damage all by themselves.

No they don't.

[cripplecreek]

Keep blowing windmill boy. Nobody here is buying your snake oil anymore.