Home school families stand at the base of a wind turbine.
Iowa has wind turbines, especially in the northwest area of the state. We have one, sort a mini version, in the middle of town, at the state fairgrounds.
We learned about wind energy early in Nov. It is an interesting topic. I was hoping that the slide show we saw would be on the Midamerican website (here), but it’s not, so I’d like to share my text messaging tweets and images here.
I was impressed that an engineer gave the presentation. Her statements, of course, support the existence of her current job, so take it all with a grain of salt. There could be other angle of wind energy that were not presented.
- Wind is different from other forms of energy. Nuclear energy may be clean, but it is not renewable.
- Iowa is the 7th windiest state.
- Iowa’s energy is moved from the western part of the state to the eastern part.
- Battery storage is not affordable for the utility.
- The nacelle is the box attached to the blades. It’s the size of a bus and has room for 3 adults + gear box + generator.
- There is no way to physically move electricity from the Midwest utility system to other parts of the nation. The infrastructure does not exist.
- Midamerican Energy is the largest property tax payer in Iowa.
- Residential homes wanting to leave the grid will find that converting to solar is much much more affordable than wind energy.
