Renewable Generation of Electricity Legislation a Key Part of Rural Development Legislation

June 2009 Newsletter

Legislation to promote renewable generation of electricity is the most important new rural development legislation before Congress this year. There are two key components: 1) A renewable electricity standard to require generation of a significantly larger share of electricity from renewable sources, and 2) building high-capacity transmission lines to move electricity primarily from high wind areas to the nation’s largest cities.

Renewable electricity means first and foremost wind energy. And wind energy means increased economic opportunity in rural areas. A U.S. Department of Energy Study (titled 20% Wind by 2030) concluded that ramping up wind generation to 20 percent of the nation’s electricity would create 28,000 direct permanent wind turbine maintenance jobs and 47,000 wind site construction jobs.

These are primarily rural jobs – from the Appalachian Mountains to the Ozarks, to Iowa and Minnesota and the Great Plains. Add in the resulting gains on rural Main Streets, and the benefits become even more substantial.

In Nebraska, for example, the study projects 3,600 permanent new rural jobs and seven times that in construction-related jobs lasting one to two years. Other Great Plains states like Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota and Oklahoma would see similar rural job gains. Landowners would also benefit from rental payments of as much as $5,000 per turbine each year and potentially more in profits, if allowed to share in the ownership of wind turbines.

To achieve those gains, the federal government must act to beef up the national electric transmission grid and set ambitious goals for renewable electricity. Rural America – especially here in the wind belt – would benefit most from an ambitious standard of 25 percent of electricity from all renewable sources combined by 2025. So would the rest of the nation.

Renewable energy serves the common good. It addresses the very real threats of reduced crop production and extreme weather damage, including lives lost, from climate change. Though there are skeptics, the world’s leading climate scientists have concluded that it is 90 percent likely that fossil fuel emissions are causing climate change. We won’t know with 100 percent certainty until it’s too late to do anything about it. That makes it imperative that we take common sense, practical steps now like investing in wind energy development.

Wind energy is practical. The Department of Energy study, published by the Bush Administration, concluded that a strong, national transmission system would largely overcome the problem of local variability in wind and wind electric generation. And wind electricity is affordable. The study estimated that we could pay off the costs of the new turbines and transmission lines with savings in fuel costs plus about 50 cents per U.S. household per month.

That’s a small price to pay for significant progress in addressing the very real threat of climate change and revitalizing rural America.

Agree or disagree? Send your opinions to Chuck Hassebrook, chuckh@cfra.org, or call 402.687.2103 x 1018.

Comments

New transmission lines and rural areas

Tue, 06/09/2009 - 14:19 — Margaret Jensen (not verified)

I live in a very small, rural community in the mountains of Shasta County, N. California, called Round Mountain, where we have had a substation and 3 major transmission lines smack in the middle of our community for 30 years. Now, a different energy coalition, TANC, wants to build another substation and 3 more lines through our area--all to benefit urban consumers 100-300 miles away. It's allegedly to tap wind power another 200 miles away--in an area identified by the state of CA as the least economical of all wind-producing areas in CA. It's actually to be able to hook up with future transmission lines from the Pacific Northwest. Our tiny community is being told to carry the burden of ugliness, environmental and physical health hazards, and massive property loss on behalf of a large part of CA--and we already have done more than our share. At least our current substation is the local energy provider, PG&E. Ironically, many in our region already live off the grid or partially off of it; and our watershed is crucial to the Sacramento River. So we--and other communities under the proposed transmission lines--are fighting this thing. Go to www.stoptanc.com to see the entire story. We are willing to do our part when we see that everyone else is doing theirs, and that is not the story here. I AM an environmentalist; I AM also a pragmatist, but I AM NOT willing to be a sacrificial goat for a project that does nothing but destroy my community and does nothing to promote urban dwellers' responsibility for developing resources within their own communities. So, let's have an article about how "green energy" may mean the sacrifice of many rural communities, please. Lines are proposed to go over my certified organic farm; to go over the forested areas of many of my neighbors--who had counted on being able to harvest timber as their retirement income but now will have permanent clear-cuts...it's a complicated picture of harm.