Today I headed North to Wyoming. Roughly ten miles after I crossed the border I saw a highway sign that was lit up and read, "Caution: 40+ Mile Per Hour Gusts." That wasn't the interesting part. The interesting part was that directly below the sign was a Peterbuilt tractor and trailer tipped over and laying on its side in the median. The first thing that popped into my head was "Is that for real, or are they trying to prove a point here..."
It got me to thinking about the wind a bit and I realized a simple fact. Wyoming IS windy! However, they seem to know that. If you look to the east from I-25 you are able to see a wind farm where they are capturing this renewable resource and transforming it into energy.
If you head back across the border into Colorado you reach a road called Buckeye Road. Here is where Colorado gets a large part of it's energy. They get it from burning some non-renewable energy. You can tell it is non-renewable because of the giant smoke stack that rises from the power plant.
The strange part is that the Buckeye Power Plant in Colorado and the the wind farm in Wyoming are only 20 or so miles a part. Both have the same 40+ mile per hour gusts. So why doesn't Colorado have a wind farm?
The funny part is that Wyoming is stereotyped as being the dumb cowboys. So what does that make us Coloradoans when we are not taking advantage of such renewable resources?
No comments:
Post a Comment