WPLN News Archive; TVA Wind Power (Terri Smith) 8 26 02; News Archive 7/12/02-9/23/02

wind energy appeared in the fourteenth century as a way to power machines around the farm particularly nelson bus the term when know deniz energy producing machines are called wind turbines instead of being made out of wood and fabric the sleek futuristic structures stretched the sky on stark white metal poles that harness when the shimmering fabric was blades some are taller than the statue of liberty and each of the three blades it's twice as long as the city bus boy is a novel about hearing harris is the manager of tv a three hour speech program which creates electricity from renewables like wind solar panels and methane gas which are within six hundred fifty people are plenty of people who played a lot with the blade of a repetition of the cross three hundred feet from the tip of a row the top of the rover to the ground and he doesn't want to be a the largest public utility in the us and stop the turbans on buffalo mountain oliver springs providing enough electricity for four hundred

homes while hare says the turbines are performing better than expected today the va had to jump through some hoops to get the product running first years were to relieve concerns that wind energy sporadic nature might disrupt even flow of electrical current on the power grid despite environmental assessments examining everything from wind speed community approval to safety for migrating birds tv a also had to readjust term and so they would stop going and over speed shutting down and all this came after to be a twelve to install the turbans a process that took every three months and involved building a road up the mountain for cranes and trucks ultimately east german cost one million dollars to read yours originally wanted machines to reside on lookout mountain in chattanooga it would be easier to mount the turbans their intimacy and would have been better able to tour the larger than life and wales however a not in my backyard sentiment prevailed and tv chose the old mining side of buffalo mountains dead hours have to be placed on top of mount tops where most of this when resources when you do that you sometimes encounter people that are concerned because they have a certain way of life in tennessee

valley that they've got accustomed to and the change in the visual surroundings by erecting wind turbines might not fit with everyone it does that with a seal mark she can see the turbines from our house the lives near the mountain the grandmother in long time resident oliver springs says not only is she for their turbans and so are many of her neighbors alice around the last few weeks is that benefit they don't like the mark that one and then he and yet won a single negative effects and they were denied even realized that they were that pushed however story you know i think he was one of four she usually come along in the nineteen seventies it seemed like a national indian what happens sooner california led the way but because the state's wind energy tax credit rewarded entrepreneur is for the number of turbans erected reading the amount of energy they produced people took advantage of the tax credit to the point of corruption this cause a political backlash in the incentives were miffed in nineteen ninety two congress adopted a new production tax credit in the department of energy began to invest in

turn into belmont this support can buy with a more efficient technologies help the cost of wind dropped eighty percent since nineteen eighty the us is now in the throes of the biggest wind been ever erasmus is an author and journalist who spent over ten years researching the wind industry he says wind would be more competitive if it was on a level playing field there people who say within five years it will be the cheapest power source without the tax credit and of course then you have to keep in mind when there's a tax credit for wind is that there's all kinds of subsidies for nuclear and fossil fuels that people don't talk about so actually if you took out all of the subsidies of all energy sources of wind power would be the cheapest even if wind energy could be the cheapest utilities producing it still have to compensate for the extra cost of any technology they do this by either increasing rates for all of their customers or by relying on volunteer coaches a patient right now at va relies on customers to sign up for the green power switch at four dollars extra per hundred fifty kilowatt hours tv has more than five thousand green cards which customers including corporations like closing keen

goes for every person joins that's less demand for more polluting traditional power like coal and more money for the green power program to expand and that sees a seal mark i'm just fine it would be nice to have a story documenting it and that's what it is does know came across in the wind so they're making electricity from wind hasn't always been a breeze as far as tb is when program is concerned success may indeed be in the air for national public radio no it's better