Cut-in (installation)

Cut-in describes what spurred me to edit this handbook on harvesting some of the 1,030 billion kWhs of wind power South Dakota enjoys (but not all South Dakotans) each year. With electricity and water rates going up here in Watertown, we should have 5 megawatts of windfarming to counter-balance those increases. (I can be "the squeaky wheel" so locals will act.)

All through grade and high schools in Watertown, I disliked the wind; it made riding a bike into town work during summers and numbed fingers during winters. Those memories and dozens of others resurfaced as I drove from Des Moines, Washington to Watertown that howling August day. The gas gauge was close to “Empty” as I exited I-90 near the Wyoming-South Dakota border to fill the tank.

“What an odd place for a gas station,” I grumbled as the winding secondary road led up to a broad, flat hilltop where the pumps were, along with a heavy-truck repair depot and a restaurant.

My mood was further soured by having to struggle to open the car door against that “God-forsaken wind” (a long-unused, but not forgotten phrase). It almost made me forget about the $3.10 per gallon gas I was burning- almost.

Gasoline prices mushroomed into crude oil prices which mushroomed into energy. Costs are a problem; problems mean opportunities for earning money; and other random thoughts bounced around in my head as the gasoline/money flowed. What can I do here, in this situation? Pieces of paper flew, clumps of tall grass were bent nearly flat, a stop sign jiggled, and my partially-open jacket billowed and strained at the zipper. Energy was all around me, “as plain as day,” but still untappable in my “forsaken” mind-set.

“Oh crap! Thirty-four dollars!” my penny-pincher screamed, jerking me back to the here-and- (painfully expensive) now. As I “swam” through the gusts in to pay, “What can I do?” continued to nag, as troublesome as a slow fly in mid-September. Of course returning to the car was a case of being hurled, one stride becoming 2 and a-half, clutching for the door handle like grab-bing a handrail during a stumble.

Safely at the door, once again I fussed with the door, stewing “What can be done with this shtuff?!” Still no answer (apparently it's easier to nag than to solve, I mocked.) Returning to I-90, the view from the hilltop was exquisite: lower hills softened by golden grass, purplish valleys, and a few puffy clouds overhead. I continued to gawk at it all, eventually finding the interstate ingress (I've always wanted to use that word instead of “entrance.”) without taking too many “scenic routes,” and was, as Willy Nelson might say, “on the road again.”

[Continued in next post.]

See current wind speed and direction at the Watertown Municipal Airport.