By STEVE GARBACZ, Commercial Review

While fall harvests are looming, it will still be about a year before Jay County could start farming the wind.

Test towers in Jay County are still collecting data in a two-year run and are about halfway there. The towers in the county, owned by American Electric Power and Clipper Windpower, will continue to monitor wind patterns to see if putting up turbines will be feasible.

It's a project still looming in the minds of area landowners like Bob Lyons, whose property could become the site of several windmills if a project moves forward.

Lyons, a Pike Township resident who has been a proponent of the idea since it surfaced, spoke with the Geneva Chamber of Commerce Tuesday about the alternative energy source and its progress in Jay County.

"We've got to find an alternative to buying crude from abroad," he said. "The hottest thing on the market right now is wind power. There's a lot of pressure at the federal level ... to invest in renewable sources of energy."

Lyons told chamber members about different turbines, including sizes and costs, and described a trip he took to see the windmills in Bowling Green, Ohio. The four turbines there, he said, could barely be heard when standing within about 80 feet of them and would pay for themselves after about 13 years.

But before any turbines begin going up in the county, another year of data will be needed. Lyons said the interested companies are looking to see if Jay County can field 8 mph winds at least 30 percent of the time. If not, a wind farm wouldn't be worth it.

"They can get that (in Jay County)," Lyons said. "But not a whole lot more than that."

"We're still in that collecting data mode," said Indiana Michigan Power spokesman Mike Brian, who didn't have any specific numbers available. "We'll collect that data and just confirm that there are wind resources there to support a wind farm. There's good reason to believe there's adequate wind resources there."

With the test towers just collecting figures, Brian described the process as "not very exciting, but it needs to be done." By next summer, however, developers can start crunching numbers to decide whether the major investment will hit the area.
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