What is the wing span of a wind turbine when the tip of the blade travels at 100 mph, and the blade itself makes 16 revolutions per minute?
Dan Alberts of Third Planet Windpower, LLC, which has an office in Petersburg, asked members and guests to answer that question at a Highway 14 Association Inc. meeting held at the Steel Steed restaurant in Elgin last Thursday, April 2.
Alberts recently returned from Loraine, TX, where he saw Third Planet’s new wind farm develop. He said that there are many similarities between Texas and Nebraska, and in both situations the wind farms are placed in communities that need a boost to their economies.
He is a lawyer and civil engineer, who said he is excited to represent wind farm development.
Third Planet Windpower put one of their company’s offices in Petersburg three years ago and has made strident efforts to place a wind farm in the area.
Elgin City Clerk Vicki Miller asked if there are resource persons for other areas interested in pursuing a wind farm. Alberts recommended Ross Knott at Petersburg State Bank. Petersburg has done everything right, he said, and is bound to be successful.
“NPPD will have all bids in by April 15, 2009, and they will announce whether it will be good to go by October,” said Alberts. Since some 20 Boone County representatives contacted NPPD personally at a board meeting, Alberts said he feels it likely that NPPD will accept its next wind farm proposal from the Petersburg area and that the project will be started next October. That wind farm will encompass 12,000 acres, he said.
