From his dining room table, Bruce Buchanan can see three giant wind turbines looming above his Benton County corn and soybean fields a couple of thousand feet away.

Among the first Indiana residents to experience life near industrial wind turbines, Buchanan has yet to arrive at a final judgment of his 260-foot-tall neighbors, which went operational in March.

When he walks outside, "they talk to you. They growl at you," he says. "The quiet of the rural area I have enjoyed most of my life, I probably will not be able to experience that again."

But Buchanan seems willing to accept the sound of wind being turned into electrons, in part because it turns a profit for him and his wife.

BP Wind Energy, part of the British energy giant that's developed a 222-turbine wind farm using some of Buchanan's land, will pay him a set annual rent of $7,500 per turbine, plus a share of electrical sales that could amount to an additional $2,500 per machine, he says.

Financially, "it's enormous," says Buchanan, who farms several thousand acres with family. "If you offer me the opportunity to have four towers that generate $30,000 to $40,000, that's a lot of corn and soybeans."

The turbines are so new that Buchanan has yet to see a rent check from BP, which is negotiating with Buchanan to erect seven more turbines on his land.
BP already faces problems with blade cracks and generators in its Benton County turbines.

The problems are being fixed, BP spokesman Scott Dean said.
Buchanan, a former County Commissioner, said the hundreds of turbines coming to the wind-rich county will help pay, through property taxes, for $24 million spent on school buildings in the county the past three years.

With the recession, the rural county of 8,800 residents would be hard-pressed to afford the higher property taxes that pay for the school expansion, he said.

"Now, by the grace of God, we have windmills, which will be more than enough to help us pay for it. We are lucky we have this, or we would be really strapped."