Wind Power Redux

Evidently my somewhat inflamed posts on wind energy last week caused a little angst in Nebraska last week, so allow me to clarify a little further.

First, the Nebraska Public Power District is not the only public power entity in the state.  There are many other public power organizations, from utilities to boards of utilities and all of the other sorts of byzantine layers you can imagine. The resistance to wind power comes from many levels of bureaucracy, and different bureaucracies at different times, so it is difficult to fix the blame for Nebraska's wind power deficiency on any one organization.

Additionally, I can say with certainty that Nebraska Public Power District's goal of generating 10% of their electricity from renewable sources is the only one in the state for any public power entity (at least I'm not aware of any other publicly acknowlegded goal).  So that's a good thing and a step in the right direction.  However, the 10% goal is too low- and the 430 megawatts of wind installed over the next 12 years is still a mere third of what Iowa and Minnesota have installed right now- each.  Moreover, that goal is just that- a goal.  It is not mandatory and can change at any time.  That doesn't mean it will, but it is not that same as a legally binding renewable portfolio standards that exist in some other states.

But most importantly, I simply do not think that incremental measures are sufficient at this time.  Global warming is an immediate problem, one that requires dramatic changes in the way we do things today.  Those changs need to be made right now, without waiting for some other agency to provide us the money or other incentives.  We can take the lead- and by doing so, we could also be in line to receive a very large amount of money when a cap and trade program is passed at the federal level.  Additionally, I see a gigantic missed opportunity for rural Nebraska.

I have heard many objections to wind power over the past week, and most of them revolve around the technical difficulties of wind power generation- variable supply due to changing winds, the lack of power lines in windy areas, etc.  And I can tell you right now that I am certainly not a wind power or electricity generation expert.  But here's what I do know:  Wind power is working in other states, and it is delivering economic benefits to rural communities and landowners, not to mention the environmental benefits.  All of the objections I've heard to wind power in Nebraska don't readily acknowledge this.  I mean, come on.  I don't know how many times I've heard "Wind just won't work in Nebraska". Really? In Texas there is over 5,200 megawatts of wind power installed right now, and they don't seem to be having all that many problems with wind variability, etc.  In fact, in this month's newsletter I wrote about a federal study that includes this paragraph:

Until recently, concerns had been prevalent in the electric utility sector about the difficulty and costs of dealing with the variability and uncertainty of energy production from wind plants and other weather-driven renewable technologies. But utility engineers in some parts of the United States now have extensive experience with wind plant impacts, and their analyses of these impacts have helped to reduce these concerns.  (There is a much longer discussion of this and other supposed obstacles to wind power on the report's website.) 

Moreover, let me say that I would vastly prefer that wind power come from small-scale turbines owned by individuals, and I think power companies could provide capital for homeowners to construct them.  However, I'll take large wind turbines if we can't get that policy, because global warming is here, it's real, and we need to do something now.  Even if it is large and corporate owned, I'll take a wind turbine over a coal fired power plant anyday.

Truly, though, I'm not really all that interested in why we haven't developed large scale wind power in Nebraska to date; I'm interested in what we're doing for the future.  And 430 megawatts over the next 12 years may be an admirable (for Nebraska) step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough.

If the various public power entities in Nebraska got together and declared they were committed to seriously and immediately changing the future of power generation in Nebraska it would be an enormous event.  They could commit to not building a single coal-fired power plant ever again.  They could say they were going to invest in the next generation of power sources, right now, today, and that Nebraska is going to be the first state in the country to wholly commit itself to a renewable energy future.  Can you imagine the results?  C-BED projects everywhere.  Small scale renewable energy businesses popping up all over the state.  Heck, every damn state in the country is trying to build one of the biotechnology parks.  Nebraska could create the single biggest renewable energy project in the country, and the various public power organizations can do it all on their own.  They don't have to answer to Wall Street investors that demand short-term results.  They answer to Nebraskans- 89% of whom favor substantially increased investment in renewable energy.

Much like rural America, we need new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things in the electricity sector.  We need them now, and we can't be satisfied with small steps.  12, 15, 20 years from now is too late.  We need serious conservation measures.  We need to find a way to divorce economic growth from increased energy consumption, whether that energy is from renewable sources or not.  That is an enormous task, to be sure.  But the town, state or country that figures out how to produce most of its energy from renewable sources in the next century is going to be light years ahead of every other.  Public power, in its various forms, offers an incredible and maybe the best opportunity to embrace that future, to take the lead instead of follow.  Public power can take into account more than today's dollar and cents calculations, and invest in the future.  Right now, that is not happening, and that's a disappointment.