My Year of Living Cleaner: Road Trip to South Dakota - Cleaner Energy from Wind Farms and Corn?

It seems like forever since I have traveled by car from Michigan to South Dakota, especially traveling through Wisconsin and Minnesota. It is so called fly-over country and that it what I have done since the days when we would drive to visit my parents on the farm, or later my mother in a rest home.

It is a beautiful drive--through Wisconsin, over the mighty Mississippi river and into the rolling hills of Minnesota. I did notice one dramatic landscape change--the many wind turbines silhouetted against the blue sky and fluffy white clouds. I snapped many photos through my backseat window. I thought the turbines were rather stunning--I was certainly stunned to see fields of them--farms of them, really. If the wind farms are a new source of income for the farmers, an alternative "crop"--I like that, too.

With my limited knowledge of the turbines, I haven't been able to figure out yet how many years of service and at what price they become profitable. I don't know anyone who is not for clean air--the question is always, at what cost--or more specifically, at what cost to the taxpayer? They are not without controversy.

Some are worried that the turbines are dangerous to birds, some don't like their intrusion on the landscape (not in my backyard), and some object to the humming sound (I couldn't hear them) they make.

Some of the turbines were not spinning and I wondered why. I read that some of the turbines that Minnesota purchased "used" from California had trouble with the hydraulic fluid gelling up in the cold winter weather.

I've decided I rather like this new kind of crop that has sprouted up. The turbines looked rather stately, spinning slowly on this bright September day. Hopefully they are producing lots of clean energy and are a reliable source of income for the farmers who have allowed them in their corn fields.

We also met many semi-loads, brimming full of green ear corn, on the two-lane country road we chose to take between the Twin Cities and Brookings, South Dakota. Were they headed for an ethanol plant? This source of alternative energy is not nearly so attractive to me, visually (ugly factories) or philosophically (in my world, corn is for cows and a nice treat for chickens--not so much for cars or humans). I am embarrassed that I know so little about the corn crops and how they are used. I think shelled corn would be transported to the ethanol facilities and sweet ear corn used for canning and other human consumption. I have no idea what form of corn is used for making corn syrup and other sweeteners. I will have to find out.