Harvesting the wind
Downstate community embraces chance to become alternative-energy powerhouse - Downstate Illinois to host largest wind farm on Earth
By E.A. Torriero
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 12, 2005
ELLSWORTH, Ill. -- Desperate for an economic comeback, this struggling community is embracing plans to turn this landscape of low-lying cropland into a skyline of gigantic towers.
Forty stories tall, with twirling arms as long as several semis, at least 243 wind towers would be scattered over 50 square miles in what the wind industry says will be the most productive land-based wind farm on Earth. Farmers who toil to make $50,000 in a good year could rent their land to developers and add half that much--guaranteed--by watching the wind blow.
Elsewhere in Illinois, wind projects far less daunting have met stiff opposition. But not here in McLean County, where towns have been dying, shops closing, schools shuttering, population falling and farming fading.
In Ellsworth, located a 25-minute drive east of Bloomington, Ill., a town patriarch meets regularly with wind developers over steaks and baked potatoes while hashing out...
Full story at the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0506120555jun12,1,6719104.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
A personal quest to promote the use of wind energy and hydrogen technology in the Great Lakes area of the United States. The Great Lakes area is in a unique position to become an energy exporting region through these and other renewable energy technologies. *Update 2014: Just do it everywhere - Dan*
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