I live in Indiana, and in Benton County, which is just northwest of Lafayette/West Lafayette (Home of Purdue), there are literally thousands of those windmills. They’re freaking enormous, facing every direction, and you can see them all the way to the horizon everywhere you turn.

Only about 9,400 people live in that county, which is about the size of Forsyth. Makes me wonder how many people per windmill there are out there.

A lot more than 9,400 people live in Forsyth County

Same size GEOGRAPHICALLY, not by population.

Well aren’t you just the ultimate clarification man, mikey

Why are windmills white? Couldn’t this one be black and gold?

So how long before this one is taken down like the one on The Knob was??

@Jon

I’m not saying for certain. But I’d be willing to bet the one on Howard’s Knob was taken down because of laws being passed prohibiting the construction of windmills on mountain ridges. Now that they’ve built this one I would guess the law has been repealed with the wave of enviromentalism.

The good thing is Boone is in the prime area for wind power generation, so hopefully we’ll see more of these go up.

The University owns the town’s power company, New River Power and Light. They could really get the rates down with more of these windmills…

Brian,

Rates probably won’t drop for a while wind generation is still more expensive that traditional dirty means of producing electricity. I hope they do put more up though I think it is great. Can you imagine the publicity it would generate if App could be the first carbon free university?

I also think the one of the knob was taken down b/c of the noise it produced. The new ones however are supposed to be silent. I am all for some black and gold ones though!

looks like we’re going black, gold and GREEN and I’m OK with that! as long as we don’t start sporting it on the field…haha.

I’m a little surprised when I do the math. If The averge household’s electric cost is say $2,000 per year and this generates 15 household’s worth of electricity then it will pay off about $30,000 a year. With a cost of $533,000 and the time value of money it has about a 35 year payback. WOW am I missing something.

yosef77 points out exactly why we shouldn’t be sticking these silly half-million dollar pinwheels on the top of every tree-huggin’ hill in Boone.

They don’t produce any real power!

But I’m sure this will be a groovy research tool on campus for the eco-freaks and it’ll look cool in photos so the university admin can sport wood about how much their doing to save the planet – but otherwise it is completely useless.

I like it, especially since it was student-initiated. And with a 68 million dollar stadium “renovation,” we’re going to complain about a lousy half mill? Far out.

Turns out its a good to do research at universities. We have a sustainable development program at App, and learning about wind energy, and ways to improve it, will be beneficial.

The coffee shop in Belk Library won’t produce enough revenue to cover the cost of the building. Should we have a library?

Paint it black and gold and stick some cards in the spokes so it roars. Will be our new 12th man come September!

Jeff, the windmill on Howard’s Knob was taken down because the shaft in the generator kept breaking once it got up to a speed where it could actually generate power. People need to remember that was an experimental wind generator from NASA and was about three times the size of what we now see standing over 130 feet tall with blades nearly 100 feet long. Here is alink to a picture of the old Howard’s Knob windmill. You can find a picture of it on Wikipedia under Howard’s Knob.

Brian, enlighten me on why striving for a carbon free environment ig good for us. I have always been under the impression Carbon Dioxide is fairly essential to life on Earth considering that what plants take in and turn into oxygen.

Oops! The link didn’t work. Wish we could edit these things.

Not sure where you live but about 340,000 live in Forsyth County..beautiful windmill.

I saw it this past weekend…..worthless eye sore. Its purely to appease folks who buy the global warming lie. Alternative energy in theory is fine, but in reality its incredibly expensive and inefficient.

The coffee shop/library analogy is a bit of a reach. How many students can sit in the windmill and read a book/study/get online/write papers/etc??? And regarding the football stadium that costs so much money…..what other building on campus brings in as much revenue to the school as that one??

Re: carbon dioxide and plants. Experiments at Duke forest have increased the carbon dioxide to 50 times the present level to simulate atmospheric conditions of the future. Plants do grow under those conditions, but the ones which thrive and eventually outstrip all others are those that are shallow rooted. For example, pines do well for a while, but eventually their growth stagnates. Vines and shrubs like poison oak and ivy are the plants that do best with these high levels of carbon dioxide. The research is preliminary, but it does suggest that high levels of carbon dioxide will not lead to vast forests as the global warming deniers suggest.

Since when does the football stadium generate enough revenue to pay for the program and the renovations? If it does, we’ve got a scoop bigger than the S.C. governor’s affair.

You know how I know Naysayer is right?

Because, I agree with him or her.

Clayton, you’re awesome.

That’s generally how I know he’s correct. I try to avoid using the word “right.”

Natural Earth Cycles

So called “Man Made” global warming/climate change is the greatest scam in the history of mankind. When I was an undergrad at ASU in the late 70’s we were taught theories about the new Ice age coming in the next century. That has proven to be total BS also.

Rule of Thumb – If Al Gore supports it – Don’t believe it – Not matter what it is!

Exacerbated. Exasperating.

Are you really in Lodi?

“The left ones think I’m right, the right ones think I’m wrong.”

–Leon Russell

“If Al Gore supports it…don’t believe it.” –Said the man on the internet

That’s as political as I’ll get. The windmill has nothing to do with politics. We have a sustainable development program at Appalachian. Lots of people don’t like the radio, but App is renovating a building that will house WASU.

I think about Lodi during football games. Ever wonder if Armanti is out there thinking, “every time I had to play, while people sat there drunk.”

That seems to sum it up pretty CORRECTLY, Naysayer.

I’d bet StuckinLodi is like Fogerty, back in the Creedence days–never visited the city–but perhaps consumed some of its wines.

“The windmill has nothing to do with politics.”

Not sure about that one……

It may not be the sole reason, but there are without a doubt political reasons nonetheless.

I’m not Al Gore, nor a real scientist, but I did stay at a Holiday Day Inn last night.

“According to Richard Lindzen, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT, a triangle of “alarmism” has been sounded in order to benefit political, scientific, and industrial parties. The triangle is formed by scientists who develop a theory, parties with something to gain run with it to the politicians, politicians looking for votes form policies, which in turn brings more funding to scientists, profit for the advocates, and approval for the politicians. A perfect triangle.”

“According to twenty-two years of total surface temperature calculations, the rise has been less than 1 degree Fahrenheit (Christy). Hardly seems reason to break out into a sweat. Timothy Ball states that this slight change is “within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun…there is nothing unusual going on.”…reconstructing the Earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years and found that two-thirds of the variances are caused by the flow rate of cosmic rays (Solomon).”

“Professors Bob Carter and John Christy, as well as many other climatologists, argue that it is implausible to structure a scientific conclusion based on computer predictions. The science the models represent is extremely complex, thus rendering it impossible to achieve perfectly accurate results.”

From an ethical standpoint, we all should do a better job of preserving the earth. I don’t believe anyone wants to destroy it, but the alarmism and fear mongering propoganda being used to push legislation through (quickly) mirrors that of the prior administration.

The windmill could be a good educational investment for students at ASU and quite possibly save a little bit of money. It’s hard to argue the TVM of money calculation in dollars, but the educational factor must also be calculated into the equation and it’s hard to place a money value on what students might learn.

Don’t forget about the minature golf benefits. Not to mention, my chances of striking up a conversation with a Dutch woman have increased.

The best (to wit: most selfish) reason to do something about air pollution, including carbon dioxide emissions, is human health. Check the asthma rates for children in cities like Asheville, never mind places like Mexico City or L.A. And if we waited for absolute scientific consensus for every problem, we’d still be handing out cigarettes to school children (since the tobacco industry’s experts are still reluctant to recognize the harmful effects of smoking). Besides, one windmill does not a commitment to global warming make.

Alarmism. Politics. Scientific funding. Industrial gain. Triangulation. Scientifically accepted fact. Hoax. Gore. Inhofe. Whatever, whomever.

The US consumes roughly 25 percent of the world’s oil supply. Depending on where we drill and how accurate predictions prove to be regarding quantities in as yet undrilled areas, we own somewhere between three and five–maybe as much as eight–percent of the world supply. Those who wish can debate the exact percentages, but the fact is we use far more oil than we produce–or ever can produce.

Economics and laws of supply and demand indicate that we, as a nation, need to reduce our dependence on oil. One of several possible ways to do that is by developing alternative sources of energy within the bounds of economic feasibility. If some of those sources are renewable (wind, solar, biomass, perhaps nuclear) and if developing/using those not only reduces the demand – supply deficit we have in oil, but also reduces our dependence on other “dirty” sources of energy (coal), AND happens to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that can only be a good thing. Worst case, we’ll be making the planet (and its human and animal inhabitants) healthier in some modest way, while also keeping a bit of the money we now send abroad for oil–some of it to not-so-friendly governments–here at home in US industries. It will likely be a lifetime or two before we are truly “weaned” from oil, gas and coal, if not longer, so US jobs in traditional energy fields are unlikely to be lost anytime soon by virtue of any focus we place on alternative energy development.

ASU a carbon free university give me a break… in order for that to happen the hippies would have to stop choking on the carton of smokes… for goodness sakes they have a huka bar on king street….

BEARS!

Okay, what brought that on?

My suggestion: get a surface to surface missile and blow that damn windmill clean to Wilkesboro. I went to school at ASU in the 80’s and have vivid memories of another windmill.

There are also solar panels in front of Raley.

Appnaysayer, Feeding subjecting plants 50 times the CO2 in a confined area then shouting gloom and doom is akin to what happened back in the 70’s when rats were fed 50 times the amount of sacchrin that was contained in can of soda then proclaiming it as deadly. Nobody wants to destroy the environment, but let’s please use a little common sense in this debate.

If you’d care actually to read the research, I can direct you. The “plants” are not in a confined area, but in open forest, subjected to all the various whims of nature. CO is raised by towers which allow it to escape gradually into the surrounding atmosphere. And you might also be interested to know that even the most conservative estimates suggest that in 50 years, CO will increase to the amounts used at Duke.

I’ve toured the experiment site. It’s funded by the National Science Foundation which does not hand out the kind of money it costs to do this sort of thing without careful screening of the methodology and the scientists involved.

Never ceases to amaze me how allegedly educated Americans can simply dismiss the best science in the land in favor of a myth called “common sense.” Ronald Reagan’s “common sense” told him that “trees kill more people than air pollution”, that Mt. St. Helens released more pollutants than all the cars in the country, both patently false and part of the buffoonery that marked his administration and set us on the current path to ignoring what’s happening around us. We have the data. The question is: are we going to act on it or, like Regan, are we going to dismiss it simply because we don’t happen to like it?

And for the record, I wasn’t shouting “doom and gloom,” simply reporting that some plants (shallow-rooted vines) did do quite well with increased CO2.

The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.

–Barry McGuire

FEAR MONGERS!

Ostriches!

Good song, Naysayer! As Stevie Wonder once said about “Blowin’ in the Wind,” always relevant.

Is it just me, or is Naysayer beginning to make Opie look like a genius?

It’s definitely just you. Opie a genius? Come on!

There’s only one genius on this board…

“Never ceases to amaze me how allegedly educated Americans can simply dismiss the best science in the land in favor of a myth called “common sense.”
Since you are so enamored with the “best science in the land” I sincerely hope you will recognize this bit of information. However, since it contradicts your assertions I suspect you will dismiss these scientists’s as crackpots.

The Plain Truth about Glorious Carbon Dioxide
By Alan Caruba

Okay, children, let’s all sit up straight at our desks. We are going to begin 2009 with a lesson about carbon dioxide (CO2). Why do we need to know about CO2? Because the President-elect, several of his choices for environmental and energy agencies, the Supreme Court and much of the U.S. Congress has no idea what they are talking about and, worse, want to pass legislation and regulations that will further bankrupt the United States of America.

Do I have your attention now? For the purpose of the lesson, I will be borrowing heavily from a paper on CO2 written by Robert A. Ashworth [http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/No_Evidence.pdf]. It requires some understanding of science, but anyone with a reasonable education and common sense should be able to read it on their own. Ashworth is a chemical engineer.
Suffice it to say that if any of the nitwits babbling about CO2 and global warming ever went to any of the several dozen excellent websites that provide accurate scientific data and analysis, they would cease from their abusive manipulation of the public and perhaps find honest work.

To begin at the beginning; at the heart of the global warming hoax is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While it purports to represent the views of thousands of scientists, it does not. As Ashworth notes, “Most scientists do not agree with the CO2 global warming premise. In the United States 31,072 scientists, including the author, have signed a petition rejecting the Kyoto global warming agreement.” An additional 1,000 scientists are being verified to be added to the list. Thousands more exist who find the assertion the CO2 will destroy the Earth totally absurd.
Here’s what you need to know; if an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) is directly related, i.e. causes changes in the Earth’s temperature, there would be a direct correlation between the two. As CO2 rose, we would see a comparable rise in the Earth’s temperature. This correlation does not exist.

Global warming liars, however, insist that CO2 builds up on the atmosphere over a 50 to 250 year period, but this is untrue. “Every year around April, increased CO2 absorption by plants in the Northern Hemisphere starts reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere,” notes Ashworth, “and the reduction continues until around mid-to-late August when plants start to go dormant.” “It is clear that nature reacts very fast in its consumption of carbon dioxide.” Farmers call this the growing season, followed by the harvest season, followed by snow and cold during which nothing grows. Modern civilization, beginning about 5,000 years ago, is predicated on the ability to provide food to both humans and livestock, all based on these obvious seasonal cycles. The ancient Egyptians and Mayans understood the seasons, but they are apparently too difficult a concept for today’s many ex-politicians, some PhD’s, United Nation’s flunkies, and high school teachers.

Warming and cooling cycles are well known throughout human history, reaching back to the days of ancient Rome. There were Viking settlements in Greenland because they arrived in warmer times. By 1410 the place froze up. Shakespeare lived during a Little Ice Age when the Thames would freeze too. The man-made emissions of CO2 had nothing, zero, to do with these climate events. The IPCC, however, with its agenda to tax and control energy use that produces CO2, is not based on either the obvious or more complex science involved. Its “data” is the invention of computer models that are deliberately manipulated to produce false results which, in turn, can be announced and repeated worldwide.

In March 2008, The Heartland Institute brought together more than 500 climatologists, meteorologists, economists, and others for two days of seminars and addresses that totally destroyed the IPCC’s lies. It will do so again for a second time, March 8-10 of this year in New York City. Suffice it to say that the mainstream media did it best to ridicule or ignore the event and will no doubt do so again. Here, then, is a fundamental fact about CO2 you need to commit to memory. “Nature absorbs 98.5% of the CO2 that is emitted by nature and man.” Nature is a totally self-regulating mechanism that dwarfs any mindless effort to “control” the amount of CO2 produced by coal-fired utilities, steel manufacturers, autos and trucks, and gasoline fueled lawn mowers, not to forget fireplaces where logs glow or just about any human activity you can name, including exhaling two pounds of the stuff every day! “Further,” says Ashworth, “no regulation by man is necessary because CO2 is not a pollutant; it is part of the animal-plant life cycle. Without it, life would not exist on Earth. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere increases plant growth, which is a very good thing during a period of world population growth and an increasing demand for food.” “Taxing carbon,” Ashworth adds, “would do absolutely nothing to improve the climate but would be devastating hardship to the people of the world.” For example, U.S. Representative John Dingell’s plan to tax carbon would add 13% to the cost of electricity and 32% to the cost of gasoline; just what we need during a Recession that threatens to become a Depression.

Dr. Tim Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, recently asked, “How many failed predictions, discredited assumptions and evidence of incorrect data are required before an idea loses credibility? CO2 is not causing warming or climate change. It is not a toxic substance or a pollutant.” It is time to rebuke everyone attempting to foist the global warming hoax and carbon taxes on the United States and the rest of the world. It is time let Congress and the White House know that Americans will not be ruled by laws that have no scientific merit.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

So the question that begs to be answered is do you have an open mind, or have you been so corrupted by the mass hysteria created by Al Gore and the news media you can’t see the forest for the trees?

Thank you, Clayton.

I don’t give a crap about what Al Gore did or didn’t say about global warming, but I do like the idea of our energy source being from something that does zero pollution to the environment. Aside from the misfortune of certain bugs and birds that get caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, there’s no harm that can be done by a windmill.

On the other hand, regardless of global warming, drilling for oil in the ocean will be destructive to ocean life, including the plankton that absorb tons of the world’s CO2. Using oil from other countries sends our money to the Middle East; using wind & solar keeps our money in the US and creates new jobs. Cutting off mountaintops for coal in West Virginia, where much of our nation gets its electricity source, contaminates the streams below that wildlife depend on. It forces otherwise unnecessary, expensive cleaning for the human water supply as well, not to mention it destroys a great deal of natural beauty.

Again, taking the global warming debate out of it, what I don’t understand is the opposition to up-and-coming businesses creating new, AMERICAN-made, environmentally clean energy. Why should I be expected to defend Exxon (the company that gave us the Valdese) while stomping out the entrepreneurial spirit of these new, green companies?

Howard’s Knob Jr.?

Do people copy what I say on this blog and paste them onto other blogs and pass it off as fact?

Because, you should.

Michael, Show me the proof where and how plankton is being destroyed by drilling for oil. I seriously doubt there are any among us who do not agree sending money to the Middle East is bad business? That is precisely why we need to utilize ALL our energy options and that means the oil, natural gas, and coal reserves we have at our disposal UNTIL different types of COST EFFECTIVE energy sources are available. Time to stop drinking the Obama Kool Aid and face the facts. The return on investment for a windmill is a long, long time and will not add a substantial number of jobs to our economy. It ain’t happening.

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood all along, but I don’t think so. I’m unaware of anyone, credible or otherwise, who is proposing that we or any other country completely cease use of oil, gas, or coal–or even that doing so would be possible, cost effective or not, anytime within the next numerous decades. But it seems difficult to argue with the advantages of developing alternative, renewable energy sources, regardless of where one stands on the climate change issue. For that to happen, research and development (and funding) has to begin somewhere. A small-scale university campus project is one of many appropriate places to begin the process.

But I still think our windmill should be painted black and gold–ideally, with paint that reduces wind resistance.

SURE LOOKS LITTLE COMPARED TO THE GOOD ONE

how many windmills would it take to power the lights at kidd brewer. I bet more than 1000. I like the thought, but… I have to ask…I don’t want to try to try to pay 35,000 for a small ford car…I need at least one room to live in.

Tata to the rescue!