https://reasonstobecheerful.world/coal-country-wind-power-west-virginia/
"With a childhood steeped in coal dust and a budding career powered by wind,
few embody West Virginia’s transformation more than Logan Reel.
The grandson of a coal miner, Reel keeps with him his grandfather’s long,
painful death from pneumoconiosis — black lung disease — in 2012. Reel was 15
years old. “It really took a toll on him,” he says. An Air Force veteran, Reel
might have followed in his grandfather’s footsteps if not for an economic sea
change that has taken hold around his birthplace, in the coal mecca of
Northeast West Virginia.
With support from the G.I. Bill, Reel recently graduated from Eastern West
Virginia Technical College where his career as a wind turbine worker took off.
After a year and a half in East Tech’s wind program, in July 2021 Reel started
working for Clearway, a $5.8 billion energy company headquartered in San
Francisco. Now he maintains the wind turbines at Clearway’s new, 23-turbine
Black Rock Wind Farm, those that generate clean energy atop the same
picturesque West Virginia mountains that once provided this region its
seemingly endless supply of coal.
At 24, Reel is too young to remember King Coal’s heyday, yet not old enough to
recall the first turbines going up on these summits. In some ways, this lack of
context serves him well. Without a dog in the political infighting wind power
has brought to this region, Reel has a laser-focused optimism that is
propelling his burgeoning career quickly forward."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
