Leaning into the Wind

Bill Young believes in wind power with as much force as the gales that make the area around Medicine Bow, Wyo., (pop. 274) so well known.

If a local resident having breakfast or coffee down at the Virginian Hotel remarks on how calm the wind is, Young may grumble because that means his wind turbines are generating less than a third of their potential power output.

“You can’t make much money unless the wind blows a little higher,” Young says. He prefers the wind blow at least its average of 25 to 30 miles per hour through the gap created by Elk Mountain and the Hanna Uplift. Then the tall, lean man with a full head of wind-combed white hair is happy because his turbines are spinning—creating clean, green power. He uses the electricity or sells it for about 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour to electric companies in other Western communities.

“If we really got to work on wind power in the next 20 years, maybe even 15 years, we could produce around 10 percent of the American need for total energy, but that’s just a fraction of what’s possible,” Young says. Production would increase dramatically if windpower could be produced at more sites and sold at prices that compete with fossil fuels.

Young’s faith in wind power has kept attention focused on Medicine Bow for more than two decades and provided needed jobs. Construction at his farm put 10 people to work, while 130 construction workers were hired to build other area wind farms. Eight people have been hired full time at a PacificCorp/Sea West wind power project.

The wind projects have had a positive effect on the town, Mayor Jerry Cook says. “I know they’re going to build some more. We’ve had people from all over the world coming out and looking at them,” he says.

Young moved to Medicine Bow in the late 1970s as a project engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation when that agency, along with the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA, built the largest wind turbine in the world—the 263-foot-tall Hamilton Standard WTS-4—near Medicine Bow.

Funding ran out and the government decided to sell the turbine, which was not yet operational. Young bought the $10.8 million turbine for just $20,000 and got it running. As the 257-foot turbine blades spun, Young recouped his investment and made a profit in just 13 months.

The huge turbine had structural flaws and failed again, however, so it no longer generates power. It shifts direction with the wind, however, so Young calls it “the world’s largest weather vane.”

Young didn’t give up on wind power. He got additional financial backing and started installing smaller turbines. Now he manages a wind farm of nine turbines that provide power primarily to the Colorado communities of Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Estes Park, and Aspen.

Young’s work helped provide data showing wind projects could be economically viable in the region, thus supporting newer projects, says longtime town resident Howard Smith.

“I really like to see those windmills. … Just think of the electricity that it’s putting out,” Smith says.

Viewed from town, about five miles from the wind farm, the turbines appear small. But on site they dwarf a person or automobile. Seven are about 147 feet tall, and the other two are more than 131 feet tall.

People in Wyoming joke that if the wind ever stopped blowing, everyone would fall down because people are so used to leaning into the wind. But the more Young needs to lean, the better he likes it.

Writer Candy Moulton has been leaning into Wyoming’s wind since childhood on her family’s ranch.

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