From Alaska Dispatch, Tuesday, February 23, 2010:
On Tuesday, the village of Unalakleet, seated on Alaska’s northwest coast, celebrated the town’s newest energy force — turbine number six. The awakening of the high-tech wind catcher completes the installation of the town’s new wind farm, which has already saved the village tens of thousands of dollars since the first turbines powered up a few months ago.
Since November, Unalakleet has cut utility costs by nearly $55,000 and generated enough electricity to power 86 homes for an entire year, according the wind farm’s new Web site. The site also claims the wind energy has significantly reduced carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise have been pumped into the atmosphere through more traditional, diesel-only power generation — the equivalent of more than 580,000 miles of driving in the family car. According to our calculations, that’s about 111 one-way trips between Anchorage and Key West, Florida.
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