Dear Ted of the Wind Generator family,

Hi, Ted. I really appreciate hearing from you. I will look in the Wall Street Journal later today. They give it away her at the university for free, and I try to read it as often as I can.

Mr. Schellstede is very famous because he worked on offshore oil drilling rigs even when we were in high school, and he got the idea that he could put big towers on the old drilling platforms after the oil company can't get any more oil out of it, and replace the oil well equipment with his wind turbine equipment, so nature turns the big blades and the energy is converted into electricity. He plans to bury cables in the seabed and run them to shore, where they will hook up with the existing power grid to help cut back the amount of oil, gas, and coal the power companies have to burn to give power to the people on the land. Anything that can be done to reduce what we burn will be a good idea, but Mr. Schellstede told me that if a flock of migrating birds takes off in Mexico headed toward his big fans, they will appear on radar, and he can set his fan blades to "zero power," which means they are parallel to the wind, and will not spin. He also said they won't spin very fast, so they won't make too much noise or vibrate too much. I think he told me each blade will be about 120 feet (about 35 meters) long. That's a very big fan!

This idea, and the great ideas William Kamkwamba has, will help everyone on earth.

Thanks for writing!

Dr. Waug