July 16, 2008 7:00PM

A Day on the Wind Farm

By Robert Ray

The buzz of crickets on the prairie, the whisper of a breeze through my ears and the passing sound of a 40 story turbine cranking revolutions to the velocity of the earth’s wind….indeed, a Kansas wind farm.

We have spent the day with Pete Ferrell, a fourth generation cattle rancher, 7 thousand acres he owns here in southeastern Kansas. Pete’s a tall man, 6’4, slender, wears a cowboy hat, ripped jeans, talks with a strong command of scary western guy voice…made my forehead sweat around the edge of the hairline when we met.

Pete pulled up in front of the Beaumont Hotel on Tuesday night, about 9pm. Dusk had settled the air so his image was silhouette as he slowly cranked open the door on his pick-up truck. “Pete Ferrell, good to see you, I’m Robert Ray.”

“Robert, how are you? Tell me the game plan for tomorrow, I’m a busy rancher and I got too much to take care of”

You see, Cattle Ranchers make New Yorkers look like turtles in creepy parking lot carnival races. Pete gets the damn job done and his time is money. Pete is also a “wind evangelist”  of sorts. He has been preaching the gospel of alternative energy in the form of wind power for over a decade.

Some people in these parts hate the sight of the massive white blades hovering over the prairie. Others embrace them and find beauty and hope they make waves in the battle for powering the United States.  I sensed both views while in the region. On the side of I35 south were two signs. The first read “Yes to Wind Power,” the second “No, to nuke power.” This really means a lot to this region and you have to realize that the State of Kansas has their Oil Museum right here in the Flint Hills of Southeastern Kansas. 

There is one certain in life; wind will never stop unless there is no Planet Earth.

Each wind turbine costs 2 million dollars to construct; not including labor after the structure is set. But, each turbine can power up to 250 homes so the return may exceed the cost.

There is no irony that Pete Ferrell is preaching wind farm gospel to America. After all, windmills were built out here in the American West in the late 19th century to promote development and economic engines…basically, business in the great American West was pushed through wind energy, not whiskey and saloon brawls, although that is the preferable and noted hooligans history of business on the Great Plains. I wish it were true.

At present time only 1 percent of America is powered by wind based mechanisms.
There are nearly 19,000 turbines in action in the United States and 93,000 worldwide.

Pete Ferrell’s ranch has 100.

The United Kingdom has a proposed plan to use offshore wind farms to generate enough power to light every home by 2020.

Cowboy Pete, an American enterpriser and guy who gets the damn job done