Two Buttes

The Pawnee Buttes glow before the coming night.

The obscenity of turbines in the background is sprawl from the Cedar Creek Wind Farm, LLC.  A joint venture between Babcock & Brown (Austrailia) and BP Alternative Energy (GB).  Contrary to local myth,
the turbines were not manufactured at a local facility, rather 221 (of 274) were produced largely in Nagasaki, JP, by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, then shipped and trucked to Colorado, where they were installed by Mortensen Construction (Minneapolis, MN).  Electricity from these two wind farms is sold to Public Service Company of Colorado, which is owned by Xcel Energy (Cororate Offices Minneapolis, MN).  Transmission lines stretch over 80 miles south to Xcel's substation in Keenesbrg, CO.  The wind farm went online in 2007.

BP Wind Energy (Houston, TX) recently announced it will begin construction of a second facility 20 miles North of New Raymer.  BP has partnered with Sempre Generation (San Diego, CA) whose funding for this project has come largely from investors outside the US.  By the end of 2011 Turbines will completely sorround the Pawnee Buttes, which are part of the Pawnee National Grassland and managed by the USFS.  The turbines are responsible for the slow decimation of the areas migratory and predatory birds as well as the area bat population.  They also screw up the view, the dark night sky, and my blood pressure.

This landscape is also under threat from oil companies.  Geokinnetics (Houston, TX) wants to use seismic testing to discover potential wells on the land contained in this photograph.  Private, recreational access to the Pawnee National Grasslands, including the Buttes, is free, and maintenance of the area is paid for by your tax dollars.  The foreign investors and not quite local energy companies have the potential to see this land as a giant hole in the map.  Unless the USFS hears otherwise, they may start to see it that way, too.