Green has many definitions, one is the color of the grass on a beautiful Saturday picnic, while another is the evolution that is occurring to stop the heating of the world. Global warming is happening for the 2nd time in earth’s life span, but this time it is happening at such a rate that if we raise the temperature even 6 degrees in our atmosphere we’re going to have no more Antarctica. So you see why we need to go green, right? Well right now Turner is going green by putting up wind turbines, water wheels, and maybe even solar panels!

The 1st thing that has occurred in Turner is the wind turbines. Gray ghosts spinning in the air creating electricity and saving the atmosphere one turn at a time. Currently there are three turbines in Turner and one of them belongs to the Gallup family. Here is what they say about it…

Q. “Mr. Gallup are you happy with the wind turbine so far?”

A. “Yes, but it still needs some fine tuning.”

Q. “How much electricity does it make? And does it run at a constant speed?”

A. “It can make from 0 to 4 kilowatts depending on the wind. The wind isn’t constant so we don’t have a constant speed. Sometimes it’s fast while other times it’s not even moving.”

Q. “How do you know how much it produces? And how is it set up?”

A. “We have a little device that measures the wind and tells us how many revolutions per minute it turns. As for how it’s set up we have a machine inside of the turbine that collects the energy it is making, then it sends that energy down the pole into the electric box, where the electric box then collects credits that we will use up in the future instead of from a power company.”

So that’s what I know about wind turbines. Now let’s find out about water wheels…

Water wheels are one of the most beautiful machines ever invented. It’s as simple as hooking up a generator to the wheel, putting water on the wheel, and you then have a constant energy producer that will really crank out the power. No one in Turner has considered a water wheel yet, but when I asked the Gallup family they replied…

“The dam in Turner would make an excellent place for a water wheel because of the constant river flow. We have thought about getting one, but we don’t have any good places for it, because they won’t let us put it in the river.”

Wind turbines and water wheels aren’t the only things that produce power. Solar panels can harness the power of the sun.

Solar panels are useful and practical solutions to global warming. If the Earth is warming then we know that there is enough of the sun to power a bunch of solar panels. They are easy to put up, but you’ll need to save up to buy even one of them. They are VERY expensive at the moment, but are coming down in price as more and more people become interested. I asked the Gallup family one more question…

Q. “What about solar panels? Are you interested?”

A. “We are looking into to it.”

That’s truly being on the sunny side!

Saving the planet is becoming a major money business, no wonder all the solar and a lot of other environment friendly products are being bought up by oil companies. They know what is coming and want to slowly get out of oil because of low supplies and want to be ready for the new age of consumers. . . Eco-consumers. Let us all band together in Turner, Leeds, Greene, and everywhere else to save our planet one town at a time!