By J. Douglas Balcomb, Ph.D.

Half of the tour group at a tower base, including (from left to right) Doug Balcomb, Anne Walsh, Taylor Sourbeer, Liz Sourbeer and Brad Sourbeer. Each of the 120 bolts holding down the 13.2-foot-diameter tower is 28 feet long and weighs 150 pounds. The bolts are anchored into the 28-foot-deep concrete base. Photo by Cecilia Balcomb

Driving across the rolling hills of the wheat-farming country of eastern Washington state in mid-October 2006, there seemed to be an almost endless untapped potential for wind energy. We were on a family tour of the Hopkins Ridge wind farm of Puget Sound Energy (PSE), an investor-owned utility that serves about 1 million electric customers. Unlike the utilities that have displayed a skeptical attitude toward wind energy, PSE embraces this new technology enthusiastically. The PSE representatives even show up at American Wind Energy Association conferences, where they are warmly welcomed.

Our daughter purchased a wind farm tour at a fund-raising auction for the benefit of our grandchildren’s school. The package included the free PSE tour and a one-night stay at the Weinhard Hotel, a delightful turn-of-the-century building in the historic small town of Dayton, Wash., northeast of Walla Walla. Dayton is near where the Lewis and Clark “Corps of Discovery” expedition camped along Patit Creek on May 2, 1806. Our “corps” included my wife, Cecilia, our daughter and her husband and their three boys, ages 6, 9 and 9.

As we drove from our home on the Oregon Coast through the magnificent Columbia Gorge, the vegetation changed dramatically from a deep green conifer forest on the west side of the mountains to a treeless brown landscape cut through with deep valleys on the east side. We expected to see wind turbines near the Dalles, which is the windsurfing capital of the United States, but they are thoughtfully located out of sight up on the even-windier ridges. As we drove hours eastward toward Dayton, we passed ridge after ridge suitable for wind farms but as yet undeveloped.