Altamont Pass Wind Farm + Mikes Farm

Driving by the the Altamont Pass Wind Farm was definitely a sight to see. It is the largest wind farm in the United States at almost 10 miles across. It was also the first wind farm set up by President Cater after the energy crisis in the 1970's. There are 4390 wind turbines on the property, but that sounds a lot better on paper then in real life. The majority of the wind turbine there are very small and inefficient, so those 4390 turbines are only producing a maximum of 576 megawatts but they only run at 20% efficiency so that is about 115 megawatts. Which for 4390 wind turbines is pretty bad. But it is clean wind power so it is 115 less megawatts producing by burning fossil fuels.

Of course with all clean energy there are still problems. The main problem is that Altamont Pass is the main migration route for raptors. So at this farm over 50 golden eagles are killed each year. If the wind farm is transformed into a newer high-tech wind farm this would solve both the inefficiency problem and the raptor problem because newer larger wind turbines create more power and kill less birds.

After visiting the wind farm we drove to Tait's friends dairy farm. This was a very cool experience because I have never been on a dairy farm. Mike and his family were extremely hospitable and his two children were adorable and very playful. He made us feel right at home so we had a little cook out and set up camp in his front yard, 10 feet a way from thousands of dairy cows. Later that night he took us on a tour of the farm which he said operates 22 hours a day. So we go to see it in action. First he showed us all of the different feeds they use. This was interesting because I did not know that so much effort went into the diet of these cows. Mike is actually require to hire a nutritionist to make sure that his cows are as healthy as they can be. Since he makes his own feed the ingredients that are added can be adjusted very precisely to suit the needs of the cows. It was amazing to see so many cows. The property next to his house held 2,000 cows that were being milked and another property a little while down the road held another 2,000 cows that were not ready to be milked. Next up was the best part of the night, he gave us a hands on tour of the milking process. Even though all of the milking is done mechanically, workers are still needed to make sure that every utter is clean, working properly and not infected. So we were able to manually milk the cow to check to make sure that their milk was good. That was very fun because I have never milked a cow and never though I would in my life, it was definitely an awesome experience.

Picture Citations:

"Windmill Farm." Dan Chusid. Web. 2006.

http://www.pbase.com/camera0bug/image/68041492

"Dairy Farm." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.