So, I don’t know if anyone has noticed yet, but Bowling Green is kind of a windy town. Especially during the winter, the wind can be a little ridiculous.

There’s nothing worse than waking up at eight on a cold December morning while it’s still dark outside and trekking across campus while the wind blows across your face at a mere twenty miles an hour.

So why don’t we put this annoying wind to work for us? In Bowling Green we have a wealth of resources available, yet not many people are aware of them.

The wind that blows our skirts up and messes with our hair every day as we walk across campus can be used to heat our homes.

That’s right, in Bowling Green we are fortunate enough to have Ohio’s first wind farm, which generates wind power.

According to the city’s Web site, their mission is to “provide a clean uninterrupted power supply at an affordable price to our customers and assist them with their electrical needs.”

According to the city, there are four turbines that are each 257 feet tall.

These turbines, that are as tall as a 30-story building, generate up to 7.2 megawatts of power – enough to supply electricity for some 3,000 residents.

I highly recommend taking a trip to see these gentle giants in person.

Not only will you learn a thing or two about our unique power source, but they are also an awesome site to behold. Since the wind farm is located just outside of the city, it is a great place to see the stars at night.

Anyone living in the city can request to have their house or apartment run on wind power.

This “green power” costs slightly more than regular at 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour, it is really a small price to pay for clean fuel and a clean conscience.

Since the city announced this option in 2005, “it has experienced a nearly 30 percent increase in green pricing enrollment, bringing total participation to 464 customers or about 3.4 percent of its customer base,” according to the Green Power Network.

Let’s look at some of the other benefits of wind power when compared to traditional fossil fuels.

According to MontanaGreenPower.com, wind power has the potential to help the United States reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.

It is a clean fuel source, and it can help to cushion against the price increases of electric.

So even if a town does not seem windy enough to power their town via a wind farm, they can still incorporate wind power with other energy sources to reduce both the cost of fuel and the pollution.

Switching to wind power to run our homes will not save the planet.

It will take a long time to free ourselves from the ties of fossil fuels, especially in the United States where families often have as many cars as they do people.

However, wind power is one small step we can take in the right direction.

As Al Gore taught us over the summer, our dependence on fossil fuels is a huge problem that will take a huge solution.

But we have got to start somewhere, and it will be easier if we start taking these baby steps now.

Send comments to Erin Wethern at [email protected].