Day 17: June 24th

Today we were headed to Tait's friend's dairy farm. On our way to the farm we stopped at Altamont Pass wind farm. This is one of the oldest wind farms in the united states. Altamont pass has more wind turbines then any other wind farm in California with just under 5,000. However it doesn't produce the most electricity. It produces about 558 megawatts with a capacity of 576 megawatts and this is less than three other wind farms in California. This was an incredible site. The wind turbines went on for miles. Most of the turbines were smaller as they work at a higher capacity factor. They are much more efficient than the larger ones but you need many of them to make up for the smaller power produced by them. There is a problem with having so many small windmills and having them right in the middle of the Pacific flyway. Birds and bats are the only problem when it comes to producing wind power. At Altamont Pass, golden eagles are the victims. Any where from 75 to 110 golden eagles are killed here a year according to the Golden Gate Audobon Society. They get smacked by the blade when they swoop down to catch prey. The big turbines don't have blades as close to the ground. Now they are replacing many of the smaller turbines with larger ones. Making it less densley populated with wind turbines and less likely for mortality.

Before we got to the farm we also stopped at a living limestone cave which was neat. But after that we had gone to see gian seqoia trees in Calavarez Big Trees Park. It was an incredible experience to see all these ancient giants. These trees can live for more than 3,000 years.

Once we got to the farm we had dinner and got a tour of the dairy farm by Mike a little before midnight. I was amazed by how much feed they went through a week. Mike had 2,00 cows to feed and it must have cost him 10,000 bucks a week to feed them. According to Mike each cow eats 50 to 100 lbs of feed a day. He has a nutritionist to help him in deciding what to feed which cows. All the cows are always in a different stage when it comesto producing milk. And certain feed is best at certain stages. I found that to be very interesting. Before the tour was over some of my classmates and myself got to milk the cows which was a real cool experience.