BAD AXE, MICH. — At a time when most people choose to avoid the harsh winter winds that roar past corn stubble and whip up billowing dust clouds over table-flat fields, farmers in Michigan's Thumb now talk about catching the wind and all the money that comes with it.
Michigan's first commercial wind farm -- a collection of 32 towering turbines that conjure visions of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" -- is scheduled to begin operating New Year's Day, spurring for some a near-gold-rush mentality in this sparsely populated area.
Thousands of dollars in a guaranteed annual harvest come with each windmill placed on a farmer's land, and that lure has gone a long way toward interrupting the horizontal sameness of vast corn and bean fields.
"I can't wait 'til they get going," said Bob Webber, who turned over easement rights on a portion of his property in Huron County for a proposed second wind farm, with 42 turbines.
For generations, the tallest structures in the agricultural Midwest have been grain elevators. But the rapid growth of the wind-power industry is altering the landscape in states such as Iowa, which has about 960 turbines, and Minnesota, which has about 860, according to the trade group American Wind Energy Assn. Iowa and Minnesota rank third and fifth, respectively, in annual electrical power generated by wind. A utility executive in Detroit said he envisioned the tip of Michigan's Thumb planted with more than 1,000 turbines
Because of consistent wind speeds that buffet the Thumb, which juts into Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay, "Huron County is the sweet spot," said Trevor Lauer, vice president of retail marketing for DTE Energy Co. The Detroit-based electric utility has bought easement rights to 30,000 acres in the county, taking advantage of good winds and what appears to be a path of least citizen resistance.
"Agricultural land and wind play together very well," said Lauer, adding that wind power has "reached a tipping point. It's no longer a question of if but when, and to what extent."
Last month TPI Composites announced it would open a factory in Newton, Iowa, to build wind turbine blades. That will be the fifth turbine-parts manufacturer that has set up operations in Iowa in the last two years, driven by a soaring national demand for turbines. During the first nine months of this year, Texas, the nation's leader in wind energy, installed nearly 600 turbines. An additional 136 were scheduled to be installed by the end of the year.
