From my perspective, you have this backwards. But I am looking through rural eyes, so what else could I think? Let me show you what I see.
The problem is the people who live in cities.
The wind industry in America is more than half a century old. In 1990, I acquired my first wind industry client. Darn, I really am getting old, that was 33 years ago. As luck would have it my first client was the company owned by wind industry pioneer, Jim Dehlson. I remained a consultant through the Enron days. When Enron collapsed, they owed me a whole lot of money. GE came in, but never paid my effing bill. People get jaded when billion-dollar corporations screw them – right?
Initially, my work for the industry revolved around public outreach programs in California, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Texas, South Dakota etc. Eventually, I convinced them to switch to public education and things started moving in the right direction (and won some awards too).
While we knew exurban, suburban and urban Americans were the biggest challenge, the first order of business was getting those wind farms up and running and proving themselves. And that depended on rural Americans. Yes sir, credit due, where credit earned. Rural Americans pioneered wind and solar energy.
Today, educating urban Americans is urgent. Unfortunately, when it comes to alternative energy, urban Americans are ignorant AF. At least once a month, or so, I get calls from friends installing wind farms somewhere in the country. Last week, one technician texted me pictures from the middle of nowhere, Wyoming. Holy crap, it was a turbine graveyard. Reminded me of airplane graveyards scattered throughout rural America.
Garbage is big business in rural America, and I had garbage clients too. I saw those dead turbine pictures and put the garbage business together with wind energy. The answer was not a happy one. Convincing urban Americans to do their part in this whole alternative energy business, has an iceberg’s chance in hell.
“Educating” urban Americans, is the only way to move forward.
My friend promised to find a blade graveyard and send me photos. Those turbine blades are made of composites. How rural America is supposed to absorb all that material is beyond me.
Construction may be the only way to recycle those dead turbines and blades. And that means urban America has to do its part. Urban Americans think food grows in grocery stores, so good luck with that.
Again, “Educating” urban Americans, is the only way to move forward.
Right now, putting city people on wind projects is a very bad idea. A couple months back, some ignorant city boy held up a project down in Texas for a solid month. Cost the project several hundred thousand dollars too. What did city boy do? He cut down a tree, yanked that old oak right out of the ground. No rural boy would have cut that tree down. Rural Americans know trees like that are priceless. Trees have nothing to do with aesthetics. Trees are about soil, groundwater, air pollution, and air temperature that impact eco-systems for hundreds of miles in every direction. Urban Americans think in terms of little parks. Rural Americans think in terms of regions – hundreds of thousands, even millions of miles big.
Yeah, I’m having a little fun, but I’m not wrong. Maybe, just maybe, we should be listening to the people who built this industry. Rural America offered this country energy independence and a way out of coal and oil. Its time, urban Americans do their part. To do that, we have to educate them first.
