There is little doubt that, as the population grows, there will be a need for more energy to fuel our ever growing society. With that, there will be more calls for newer renewable energy. I cannot deny the fact that we as a society need to look for alternative energy. Some people will turn to wind energy as their idea of the energy solution they were looking for; however, there should not be subsidies that exist to help promote this business. This gives the companies that put up and manage wind energy a crutch.

My goal is not to go into politics in this article (maybe some other time), but let me ask you this, what would happen if these subsidies expire? We all know one day this will happen, thus leaving the windmill companies bankrupt out of business. There isn’t enough funding floating around in the State and Federal Government to keep funding projects like this forever. If the companies are bankrupt, they won’t have enough resources come and take down the windmills that they had put up leaving the turbines to rust. Is that what we want? Thousands of rusted out windmills across the Midwest, I wouldn’t think so.

Another issue that people need to be aware of is the negative side effects to the surrounding area. We know these windmills produce shadow flicker (when the blade of the windmill crosses over the sun and casts a shadow for one second every three seconds as the blades are turning), horrific noise (when windmills turn they cut through the air making a loud noise), and poor television reception (there are metal disks inside the windmill’s blades at which act as lighting rods, but they also act as barriers to over the air television signals).

These things are just from the windmill. Now let’s factor in other negative connotations with the windmill projects including putting up unsightly rusty polls littering the countryside, and the harm to the prime farmland that exists in the majority of the Midwest, by tearing it up fields. All of this information has been presented time and time to, but it seems that the information falls on deaf ears in various county boards across the Midwest.

I know cannot force people not to sign, but as a person who grew up and saw a windmill project come in and ruin the area I loved, I can’t help but to wonder why anyone else would ruin their sounding area my putting these windmills up. My point is this, one should look past the money involved in getting windmills, and be aware of the risks before signing the dotted line on the contract.