Monday, October 15, 2012


Albany, Western Australia
I am fascinated by huge wind turbines. These pictured are part of a wind farm on the south coast of Australia. My overactive imagination pictures them as a crop of alien babies, reaching arms for their mothers.

Many of us have flown over turbines (in Ellensburg for example) and they don't look like much from the air. But driving or walking among them makes you realize their ginormous size (great word, learned from my teenagers). Did you know they can travel as fast as 320 kph (200 mph) at the blade tips? Yet they look almost leisurely twirling graceful through the air.
Pondering

I remember seeing old, derelict, broken-down turbines at Ka Lae, or South Point, on the big island of Hawaii (the southernmost point of the US). Still jutting into the sky, they looked surreal, blades idle and cocked at odd angles, like something out of the Planet of the Apes. Sometimes I ponder what a future visitor will find on our planet, long after all humans are gone. Lots of plastic? Unexploded mines? Rusty turbines? What do you think?

4 comments:

  1. Indeed, they are "Ginormous"! Ever see a blade being transported?? It just goes by....and by .... and by.... 2+ train cars to move one with pivot set bases so the flats can move...crazy.
    We have a mountain SW of here called Mt. Taylor... it has a fairly new wind farm on the NE plateau.... at night... it looks alien with all the red light strewn about. You should hear ABQ Center explaining to pilots the first time they see that sight at night!
    AND.....your "pondering" picture is a great pic!!!

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  2. Ah, so I'm not the only one who sees them as alien. That's reassuring. As for the picture, what wouldn't look good with a sky background like that. But thanks :-)

    So, other items future alien visitors will find? Billions of odd little rectangles - our cell phones!

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  3. LOL! Yeah, little rectangular devices with these funny non functional buttons...They would ask....."What were these for?" "Some archaic form of communication device because they had to actually speak". They would have extra long thumbs and speak with them through a new language of texting. LOL!

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  4. Funny!
    And mysterious little sacs of silicone lying around amongst the bone piles. Remnants of millions of breast implants. Like to see them wonder about those.

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