A Conservative Farm Town Went Green Without Really Trying

Tiny Morris, Minn., adopted wind turbines, solar panels and composting to save money, not the planet—and now it has become a model for other rural towns

The farm town of the future is visible long before you reach the city limits, thanks to a pair of wind turbines rising as high as the Statue of Liberty above the flat terrain. They pump cheap electricity into the local grid, providing the energy to make carbon-neutral fertilizer. Closer in, cows graze next to solar panels that provide them with shade. A county-wide compost operation disposes of food and agricultural waste, electric buses take kids to school, the public library relies on geothermal heating and even a city-owned liquor store has rooftop solar panels. (The shop motto: “We chill your beer with the sun.”)