Editorial

Wind power grows, but conservation can give us more time to adapt

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Wind power continues to grow in the Heartland, first with the German company Siemens opening a new turbine manufacturing plant in Hutchinson, Kansas, expanding one in Boulder, Colorado, and just landing a deal with MidAmerican Energy Go. to build 258 of the machines in western and central Iowa.

The turbines will generate 593 megawatts of energy, or enough to power 190,000 homes, increasing Iowa's capacity of 3,760 megawatts by almost 16 percent.

Nebraska, which has the third highest wind power potential of any state, is playing catch-up, but two new wind farms began churning out power in the northeastern part of the state this month. The Laredo Ridge wind farm near Petersburg has a capacity of 80 megawatts and is expected to begin commercial operation this week for the Nebraska Public Power District. The Flat Water Wind Farm near DuBois, which can produce 60 megawatts of electricity, began commercial operation on Tuesday for the Omaha Public Power District.

In October, the Prairie Breeze Wind Energy Center received permission fro the Nebraska Power Review Board to build a 133-turbine, $448 million farm southwest of Norfolk. That wind farm would sprawl over 45,000 acres and produce 40.5 megawatts of power.

A new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decision that customers could share in the cost of building wind energy transmission lines, plus a one-year federal investment tax credit and a new state law that makes it easier for investor-owned utilities to develop wind farms in Nebraska which pump 90 percent of their energy out of the state, have combined to give wind power a boost.

But Nebraska, which has 100-percent publicly owned power, has no requirement that a certain percentage of power be produced from alternative energy and, in fact, requires that power be produced as cheaply as possible for customers. For the time being, wind isn't the lowest-cost option.

The latest two wind farms will give Nebraska a total of seven, producing about 300 megawatts of power -- hardly a dent in the state's demand.

The Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland, for example, produces more than four times that alone, not to mention the Cooper Nuclear plant's 800 megawatts and OPPD's 484 megawatts of power.

We have to wonder how long it will be before serious objections are raised to the massive white windmills flailing on the horizon, but esthetic and environmental concerns also have to be extended to the problem of disposing of nuclear waste and the carbon produced by the burning of as much as 800 tons of coal per hour at Gerald Gentleman Station, not to mention the massive mines that produce the coal, the energy expended and risk involved in hauling it.

Yes, wind power needs to be exploited as much and as soon as possible, but too often overlooked in the energy equation is the lack of incentives for producers to promote conservation which might hurt their bottom lines.

Adopting higher energy efficiency standards in our homes, office buildings and factories would mitigate the pressure to produce more power by whatever means.

Reducing demand by increasing efficiency will give us time to make sure we are bringing the best generation online in an orderly manner.

Comments
View 1 comment
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • Remember, there are literally hundreds of ways to reduce electrical and heating and air conditioning and clean water usage and thus save money, whether for a home, apartment or municiple buildings.

    By using less energy, it makes the size of the investments to generate renewable energy smaller and more affordable.

    There are many collections of energy and water saving ideas available for use so one doesn't have to start from scratch.

    http://dailyhomerenotips.com/energy-conservation/

    The above collection, as just one example, is free to anyone and contains more than 530 energy saving, water saving and thus money saving ideas, of which:

    - 440 are simple and easy to do

    - 300 cost absolutely no money

    - 125 cost next to nothing

    - 145 clean water saving tips

    - 115 electricity savings tips

    - 110 winter heating savings tips

    - 80 summer cooling saving tips

    Each household or municipality can decide which of these ideas are appropriate and applicable for it, and start applying them right away.

    Households can start with simple and no cost ideas, then with the money saved go to the simple and low cost steps, and so on.

    It really is not hard at all.

    -- Posted by Dan_DHRT on Wed, Dec 29, 2010, at 11:28 AM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: