The New York Times is reporting on a farmer who is leasing his dairy farm to Horizon Wind Energy for the purpose of building 195 electricity-generating windmills.

The company declined to discuss the actual costs of the project, but typically, each 1.65 megawatt turbine costs $2.3 million to $2.8 million to build. That would put the cost of the completed Maple Ridge project at somewhere between $450 million and $550 million. That sounds like a lot, but once the turbines are built, fuel costs are zero because the wind is free.

The wind may be free, but there will be other costs. Environmentalists who like wind energy are countered by animal-rights activists who claim that windmills take out a lot of birds. I would also be curious as to the maintenance costs of specialized parts turned by some serious torque. I’ve seen some of these types of windmills in the Wichita Mountains west of Lawton, and I don’t see them as much of an eyesore.

No New York Times article would be complete without mentioning government involvement:

Maple Ridge is a symbol of the maturation of wind energy in New York from a demonstration project to a bona fide alternative to fossil fuel-based energy, and it has been accomplished with little help from the federal government.

“The president is now talking about ending our addiction to oil, but he’s not following through with the national policies we would need to create a Marshall Plan for renewable energy,” said Katherine Kennedy, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We’re looking at states like New York to give us the projects that will change the energy picture from carbon to a much cleaner mix.”

How dare we accomplish things with private research and technology. Goldman Sachs, who owns Horizon Wind, is taking a big risk in investing in today’s power generation technology. If they can sell their wind-generated energy for a lower price than coal-generated energy, then good for them. BusinessWeek has an article about power generation from ocean tides, another potentially feasible operation without government support. Here’s to hoping legislators can stay the heck out and let the market figure out and support the more useful technology.