Kate, that pumpjack would look good with a custom paint job. Maybe a nice horse skull, or you could do it up to look like one of those toy birds that bobs its head in the water glass. Whole new profit center!

Hard to do that with a giant fan, eh? ~:D

Excellent. Go Sask, Go!!

How 'bout we put a bird face Dion on one end that goes up and down.

He would at least look useful, like one of those counterweighted birds Homer Simpson used to cancel alarms in the Nuke Power Plant

My golfing buddie and a retired Shell Oil Exec. said there is one hell of a pile of capped wells in Sask. His comment was previous governments were so hostile towards us we just labeled them uneconomical and capped them. Oil companies are in business to make money just like everyone else, no return no well, idiot Sask governments of the past never clued in to that fact.

I went and looked at the giant fans today in northern New York. They were pretty cool, actually, but I wouldn't want to live near a field of them. There a about sixty five of them, and they are "giant." They dwarf whatever is around them, and the spinning is sort of outside of human experience. I guess you would get used to them, but all in all, they bring jobs to people in an area that needs jobs, and it is better than welfare, I guess. If we can get 5% of our electricity from them, we should.

The best part is that the people in Vermont who oppose building them in their own state while lobbying to close the nuclear plant, hypocrits of the first order, have to look at them on the Adirondack skyline.

I like the colors in the photo, BTW.

Next best thing to cold fusion eh.

14 federal seats in Saskatchewan.

12 already belong to CPC.

Any reason why the other two should not belong to CPC if Saskatchewan residents want to have a better chance of holding on to their newfound and future wealth rather than having to fork it over to feed the trough in Ottawa?

That HAS to be part of the message in the next election.

That photo is a thing of beauty. That is the colour of money and freedom in one shot.

Kate, if you care to know, I can direct you to a few locations where you can take a picture of five or more pumpjacks much close together than the pic your showing. It's a beautiful sight!

Lori The CPC has 13 of the 14 the libs lost one in a bie election :)

Oh the humanity! Saskabushies having some money, history in the making. Thankfully for you people you finally got what we Albertans have enjoyed for 100 plus years and you deserve it. The commies had almost broken your spirit, never let it happen again. The screaming leftie lieberals will try to scuttle your success at every turn, we know all about it, but pay no attention to the Fat Alberts and David Sokookys with their witchcraft called global warming. Fat Albert is about due to have an Inconvienient Ruth with a love child pop out of his past like his friend John Edwards and the fools who follow his ilk will be devasted once again, happens to all lieberals and democrats sooner or later. Losers.

The "Fans" that you refer to may not be all than popular among the oil barons, however they do (no pun intended) generate a lot of work in a rural area. And whether you like them or not, they are here to stay.
What has Liberals or NDPs to do with any of this?? Some of the first wind farms in the USA were in S. California. In Canada, they were in S. Alberta, and sponsored by the Lougheed government. Is there any harm in trying to find alternate energy?? In the end, it's highly unlikey that the crude coming out of Forget will be used to manufacture electriciy. What's the relationship here anyway??

That photo is a thing of beauty. That is the colour of money and freedom in one shot.
Posted by: Half Canadian
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Well said. Well said.

and Chinese built jacks to boot.
more than just Walmart toys.

The picture reminded me of a funny story (perhaps apocryphal, but funny nonetheless..). James Schlesinger, who had been CIA Director and Defense Secretary under Nixon, was appointed the first ever Secretary of Energy by Jimmy Carter.

On his first official trip to Texas, Schlesinger was driven past a field full of pumps. "What" he wondered aloud "are those things going up and down?", to which his companion delightedly responded "Thas an oil well, Mr. Seccetary!". Doesn't seem implausible to me at all.

sorry to use jack and boot in the same sentence , hate to scaremonger some lefties.

not

The windmills look more like giant pinwheels to me.

Here is a sour grape story in the NYT today coincidentally on the fields I visited yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/nyregion/18windmills.html?ex=1376798400&en=38244f47f77e75ee&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Seems like you get the same corruption, even in as "morally pure" an activity as building wind farms. By the way, I don't doubt this lady gets vertigo from them at all having seen them spinning by the dozen.

Pump Jacks don't kill birds. fans do

opposition

Opposition is due to a variety of reasons including scenic and property value impairment, noise, bird kills, flicker effects of spinning blades after sunrise and before sunset, potential safety hazards from blade and ice throws, interference with telecommunications, and higher costs of electricity."

The "bird in the blade" legend is another scare tactic. Birds also get caught in airplane props, jet engines and my old tom cat`s teeth. I think we need to establish a fair balance between fossil fuels, wind, solar and nuclear energy. 60 years ago, many Saskatchewan farms were powered by wind generators. The Jacobs Bros. out of Minnesota had perfected a 110 Volt wind system. Sadly, Tommy douglas and the CCF took over all private utilites, thus it was no longer feasable to sell wind powered electricity. Today, the Wall government are making efforts at having private wind generator owners sell their power back to Sask. power. We`ll wait and see. I do love the sight of a donkey on a flat piece of Saskatchewan prairie.

giant fans. to power ny city all of connecticut would have to be covered with them.

After visiting the Ellenburg, NY wind field yesterday, I am not sure that these things should be built near people. Seriously, you ought to visit one.

I was very pro wind power, in fact, I went to see them for myself after seeing them from out on my boat while fishing, from something like 30 miles away, maybe 20, not sure, but it was a pretty long drive. I was happy they were there, but now, I would rather have a nuke plant near me, by far.

I also have to agree with Tim in VT. After getting out to photograph some windmills in the Sacramento Valley a while back, I was astounded at how noisy these giants are. A neat toy and piece of technology for sure but I'm glad I didn't live in the farmhouse that was between me(on the road) and the windmill.

Alberta also has windmills and has even worked on some different designs including a vertical version that looks like an egg beater but I've never seen them turn.

While it is always nice to develop new sources of energy or technology in any form, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is no "one" answer.