Sacramento, CA—They’ve been in use for over 30 years, and have, in that time, generated over 10 percent of the electricity used in the state of California. But wind turbines, which have proven to be a cost effective and environmentally sound means of generating AC power, will be costing the taxpayers of California over $35 billion in 2011—or, more specifically, in August of 2011.

The powerful, white turbines—some over 100 feet tall—dot the California landscape, most found in clusters called wind farms. But recent satellite photographs have uncovered a byproduct of the turbines, something that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes can be reversed. Said Schwarzenegger: “Aypawently theez big turbynziz zucking uz out to zeez.”

In the past 10 years, the 25,000 wind turbines in use in California have created so much energy that they’ve blown the Golden State 30 feet to the west. Now taxpayers will be stuck footing the bill to return California to its original, physical roots at a rate of $10.2 billion per foot.

“It’s a big undertaking, moving that much land mass,” said Peter Bromley, the President and CEO of It’s Turbines, Not Turbins, the leading manufacturer of wind turbines in the world. His company has sold and installed over sixty percent of the turbines currently spinning in California. “But I’m not going to take responsibility for shifting an entire state,” continued Bromley. “If they would have just called tech support…”

Schwarzenegger has consulted with the Army Corps of Engineers, who insist they can tug California back into place. “It’ll take a helluva’ jerk,” said Lt. General Robert L. Van Antwerp, the Corps’ Commanding General, “but I have a few ideas. First we’ll have to buy about 35 million containers of Vaseline—probably at Sam’s Club. And, of course, we’ll have to destroy the state of Nevada, at least the western part of it. Or is it Utah that’s next to California? I get those two states mixed up. Who has the Mormons?”

But California’s estimated $35 billion tug expense doesn’t include what they’ll probably have to fork over for the farm and ranchland that’s been destroyed, or otherwise fouled, due to the powerful turbines. Several class action suits are in the works, each spearheaded by attorneys who wish California had been blown another twenty miles to the west. “Anything to help settle out of court and soften my workload,” said Osha Ten Aple, one of the attorneys scurrying to gather up windblown plaintiffs.

According to Dustin Hendrick, who owns and operates a 200-acre cattle ranch 60 miles west of Stockton, “They put one of these wind farms a stone’s throw east of my ranch. It blew a 10-acre flap of land up, over, then onto 20 head of cattle. I now have what amounts to a three hundred foot-long cattle omelet.

“It blew another forty-three cows into the neighboring ranch. My dog was found on Catalina Island, my wife in bed with another…well, that probably can’t be blamed on the turbines.”

“We just sell ‘em,” said Bromley, wiping his hands of the issue and insisting he’ll fight tooth and nail any lawsuit in which his company is named. “I knew when they bunched up that last order for a thousand turbines onto a wind farm the size of an office park that they’d probably have issues. These things are powerful! I like to toss handfuls of gravel in front of them. It’s like wind powered buckshot. Real fun. The kids love it.”

But Hendrick doesn’t. His cattle omelet has effectively reduced his ranch to 190 acres, even though he still pays taxes on the original 200. “It’s not really fair, blowing people’s land around willy nilly. I’d go so far as to say it’s irresponsible, and I don’t use that word…well…irresponsibly.

“Give me the days when windmills were wooden and you could climb them, then spit down on your sister. I used to invite my neighbor Ernie to climb ours, then I’d try and knock him off with a long stick. I called the game ‘How many bones will Ernie break when I knock him off with a long stick?’ It was a hoot; you’d hear sounds you never thought a bone could make.”—Citizen Dick Arneson reporting

To learn more about corporations—and people—running amok, pick up your copy of the novel Citizen Dick at http://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Dick-Richard-Arneson/dp/0981939309/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286293048&sr=8-1
 

A recent review in the Chicago Sun-Times called Citizen Dick “the kind of spontaneous, belly laugh-evoking funny that caused my wife to banish me from the living room until I was finished reading it.”

And don’t forget to visit http://www.citizendickthebook.com and check out the Dick Strips!

  

www.citizendickthebook.com | © Richard Arneson 2010