New Site Finds Wind Energy Gold

Hull is a little peninsula of a town on Massachusetts’ south shore. Small in stature, the community yet looms large in its renewable energy ambitions.  The town’s two turbines currently provide up to 20 percent of its electrical power. Adding four more towers would bring that to over 100 percent.

Hull has been model for communities hoping to take control of their own energy future and assume responsibility for climate change.

While the rush for real gold has been a romanticized part of our country’s history, it’s effects on the environment are an often untold story. Boom towns sprung up in the west and settlers flocked there as reports of gold filtered eastward. While many a prospector patiently panned for nuggets in streams and rivers, mining companies sprung up also, and with them came strip and hydraulic mining.

The wind resources communities and states are now seeking to mine all over the country couldn’t be a starker contrast to the gold sought after nearly 150 years ago. Wind power’s effects on the surrounding environment are counted in nature’s debit column; it provides a clean and renewable power source, replaces dirty fuels and stymies climate change.

Many boomtowns that were a symptom of the gold rush inevitably went bust as their nuggets dwindled. Wind power may ebb and flow at a given site, but will never disappear. Therein lies another value of this resource, the sustainable jobs that appear and remain with the wind towers.

3Tier’s improved site now offers individuals and communities a better tool with which to strike it rich for the environment and job creation.

3 turbines credit : Iberdrola Renewables NREL/DOE http://www.nrel.gov/data/pix/searchpix.cgi?getrec=40046&display_type=verbose&search_reverse=1

Gold Rush Poster http://flickr.com/photos/waterkant/249056739/

Prospector http://flickr.com/photos/tooliver/497511638/

Single Turbine insert http://flickr.com/photos/robyn-gallagher/232609277/