Inside the First Wind-Powered City in America

Rural Rock Port, Mo., looks like just about any small farm town — with mostly cattle pastures and cornfields. But there is something remarkable on the horizon.

Peeking out above the rooftops and the tree line stand four towering windmills. The sleek 40-story turbines spin like pinwheels in the afternoon breeze, harvesting Rock Port’s newest crop, wind-generated electricity.

The turbines now power every computer, every appliance and every light in town — even the only traffic light on Main Street — making this city of 1,300 the first and only in the nation to run completely on wind power.
Wind Capital Group executives said they expect having the windmills will freeze the electric bills of every home and business in Rock Port at current levels for at least 25 years.

You would think it might be tough to convince farmers in the nation’s heartland to give up their valuable acreage to plant giant windmills. But that was not a problem in Rock Port.

Land owners are paid anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 a year for the half acre of property surrounding each turbine. That is more than they could earn growing soybeans or corn.

ABC News