A wind turbine on the south side of Traer is providing 40 percent of the town utility’s energy usage, the Waterloo Courier reports. (This was the newspaper centerpiece last Sunday.) The turbine, now five years old (and built after the derecho), will be paid off by the end of next year. Traer Municipal Utilities also has some solar panels generating electricity.
It’s a big change from when trainloads of coal came downtown to serve as fuel.