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First U.S. Town Powered Completely By Wind

By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer, livescience.com

Rock Port, Mo., has an unusual crop: wind turbines.

The four turbines that supply electricity to the small town of 1,300 residents make it the first community in the United States to operate solely on wind power.

"That's something to be very proud of, especially in a rural area like this — that we're doing our part for the environment," said Jim Crawford, a natural resource engineer at the University of Missouri Extension in Columbia.

A map published by the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that northwest Missouri has the state's highest concentrations of wind resources and contains a number of locations that are potentially suitable for utility-scale wind development. The four turbines that power Rock Port are part of a larger set of 75 turbines across three counties that are used to harvest the power of wind.

(More here.)