NONPD: NEWS: NYTimes: Curse of the Wind Turns to Farmers' Blessing

[janet paterson <janet313@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

(note from jmp -
perception is our choice -
ideas like these were promoted in the seventies by 'radical left-wing hippies' ]

Curse of the Wind Turns to Farmers' Blessing

November 26, 2000 - LAKE BENTON, Minn. ? For generations, the bittersweet 
question around the Schardin family table was this: What in God's name was 
Theodore Schardin thinking in 1884 when he stopped his wagon here, on a 
desolate ridge blasted by every last gust of wind that swept across the 
prairies?

All of a sudden, though, the Schardins and others who have ended up trying to 
eke out a living in some of America's windiest parts have found themselves 
feeling pretty lucky that their forefathers staked out land exactly where they 
did.

That blasted wind, it turns out, was worth something after all. In a boom that 
seemed unimaginable a few years ago, it has become the nation's fastest-growing 
source of electricity, with capacity expected to double in the next 13 months.

And as utility companies race to line up new supplies, farmers like Conrad 
Schardin are counting crisp cash in their pockets and eyeing the sleek 
windmills known as turbines in their fields.

"Basically, they're paying me to let the wind blow," said Mr. Schardin, 38, who 
has found that selling wind rights to his great-grandfather's homestead can 
earn him a lot more than annual crops of corn and beans.

Turning wind into power is nothing new, of course. Windmills were common in the 
Midwest until the arrival of rural electrification, and commercial wind farms 
have contributed to California's electricity supply since 1981, as part of the 
response to successive energy crises.

But what is now under way, most experts say, is a transformation on a much 
larger scale. With the development of bigger, more sophisticated turbines, the 
cost of wind-generated electricity, once seen as prohibitive, is now nearly 
competitive with that of its rivals, all but eliminating what was once a major 
barrier.

Around the world, wind generation of electricity expanded by 39 percent in 1999 
alone. In Denmark, wind already supplies 10 percent of the country's 
electricity, while in Germany's northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, it 
supplies some 14 percent of all electricity.

For now, wind still generates far less than 1 percent of the nation's 
electricity, with the bulk of the projects in California. But across the 
country, wind is increasingly being regarded by utility companies as worthy of 
a larger role as the utilities struggle to meet soaring electrical demands at a 
time when oil and gas prices are steep and volatile.

By the end of next year, the Energy Department projects, some 4,600 megawatts 
of wind power generation will be in place, enough to provide for 1.7 million 
households. That would be an increase from 2,500 megawatts today. Both Vice 
President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas support tax incentives to 
promote the use of wind over the more polluting fuels, so most experts believe 
that no matter who ends up in the White House, the trend is unlikely to wane.

"My belief is the current boom will continue," said Charles Lindemann, director 
of energy supply policy at the Edison Electric Institute, an arm of the utility 
industry.

This is giving rise to bold new dreams in places like Lake Benton; Storm Lake, 
Iowa; and Pecos County, Tex., which are or soon will be home to some of the 
biggest wind farms in the world.

With several large projects scheduled to be completed next year, Texas, best 
known for oil and gas, is now expected to be the next center of wind power 
development. Ranchers and farmers better accustomed to being paid for what lies 
under the ground are being offered royalties for what blows across it.

"We've got lots of wind," said Pat Wood, Mr. Bush's appointee as chairman of 
the Texas Public Utilities Commission, "and it's about time that people figured 
out a way to make some money off it."

In Minnesota, landowners in the Lake Benton area can earn about $2,000 a year 
for each of the 200-foot- tall turbines that stretch across 30 miles of 
farmland on the high ground known as Buffalo Ridge. Some farms have one or two 
of the turbines; others have more than a dozen. Each turbine takes up just 
one-eighth of an acre, and farmers and ranchers are free to use the remaining 
land, though few crops clear more than $40 an acre.

"We cussed that wind for years," said Jim Nichols, a Lincoln County 
commissioner, "and now it is turning out to be a godsend."

Wind farms have sprung up recently in other parts of the United States, 
including Pennsylvania and West Virginia. A $16 million project recently began 
operating in Madison, N.Y., about 80 miles west of Albany. But because the 
amount of power available increases exponentially with wind speed, the 
attention of large-scale projects has been fixed on places ranked even higher 
for wind energy potential by the Energy Department, including the Great Plains 
states and Texas, regarded as the Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of wind power.

Together, South Dakota, North Dakota and Texas have sufficient wind resources 
to provide electricity for the entire United States, according to studies cited 
by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Last year, Mr. Richardson set a goal of 
making wind's share of American electrical capacity 5 percent by 2020.

Of the 10 states ranked highest for wind potential, 7 are in the Midwest, 
because of a combination of wind constancy and the availability of open land. 
Minnesota is just ninth on the list, but utility officials say the winds that 
blow across Buffalo Ridge, in the far southwestern corner of the state, are 
tough to beat.

At an average speed of 15 miles an hour, the winds there generate nearly twice 
as much electricity as 12- mile-an-hour winds, because the total power 
generated is a function of wind speed cubed. Xcel Energy, Minnesota's largest 
utility, buys the electricity under contract for three to four cents a 
kilowatt-hour, not much more than the cost of power generated by gas-fired 
turbines, the current source of choice for utilities seeking new capacity.

In Minnesota, the main momentum in the shift toward wind has come from the 
Legislature, which in 1994 imposed a requirement calling for Northern States 
Power, Xcel's predecessor, to have 425 megawatts of wind power capacity in 
service or under contract by the end of 2002.

That arrangement was part of a bargain that has allowed the utility's nuclear 
power plant to stay in operation, and officials at Xcel say they are on track 
to meet the goal.

To date, similar mandates set by California, Iowa, Texas and other states have 
been the driving force in persuading utilities to turn toward wind as an 
alternative to conventional sources like coal (the leading nonrenewable energy 
source), natural gas and nuclear and hydroelectric power.

But in Texas, where a deadline does not take effect until 2009, utilities are 
moving so quickly to approve wind power projects that state officials now say 
they are likely to meet the 2,000-megawatt target several years early. The 
goal, which amounts to about 3 percent of Texas's generating capacity, was set 
last year by the Legislature and signed by Governor Bush as part of the rules 
for utility deregulation.

With wind capacity expected to hit 4,600 megawatts by the end of 2001, the 
country would be four years ahead of a pace outlined just last year when Mr. 
Richardson, the energy secretary, set a 5,000-megawatt target to be reached by 
2005.

One reason for the current development blitz has been a Congressional decision 
to extend for at least another year what is effectively a subsidy for wind 
power operations. Developers are guaranteed a tax credit of 1.5 cents per 
kilowatt-hour for their first 10 years of operation, which is allowing them to 
market wind power for as little as three cents, even though the best-case 
production cost is at least a cent higher.

Because it produces no emissions, is entirely renewable and does not require 
dams or underground mines, wind power ranks as one of the cleanest sources of 
electricity, but it still has drawbacks. One is that production is hostage to 
the wind, so that until storage technology can be developed, utilities that 
rely on it must also arrange for backup power sources.

Another is that the turbines produce enough noise to bother some nearby 
residents, and that is stirring citizens' opposition to at least one project 
now under review, near tract developments and farmland in Addison, Wis.

Separately, environmental concerns forced the transplantation of another 
project, in the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles, after the Audubon 
Society warned that the turbines would pose a danger to flyways used by the 
endangered California condor.

In states like North Dakota, which is ranked No. 1 in the nation in wind 
resources but still lacks a wind farm of its own, another obstacle to wind 
development is a shortage of transmission lines, a vital link in moving power 
from the rural areas where it can best be produced to the population centers 
where it is most needed.

Even so, officials like Mr. Nichols have begun to sketch plans for an enormous 
wind power network that would stretch across three Great Plains states and be 
connected to the power grids that supply Milwaukee and Chicago. And in South 
Dakota, though projects are still in the talking stage, brokers have begun to 
make their way from farm to farm, offering royalties for wind rights.

In places like Lake Benton, elected officials and farmers say they see the 
windmills as nothing but a gain, even if they do dwarf the grain silos that are 
a more familiar feature of the landscape. Property taxes paid by developers 
will cover 35 percent of this year's county budget, and landowners flush with 
royalties say the windmills hardly disrupt their ordinary farm operations.

Mr. Schardin, who sold 90 acres of wind rights for a one-time payment, said the 
$40,500 he pocketed was nearly as much as the going rate for the land. With the 
money, he and his family have settled old debts and put some money away for 
retirement, something he had never really envisioned.

"I think the windmills are neat," he said in his living room, as the bitter 
wind outside turned a little snow into a blizzard. "When you're out there in 
the fields, and you look up, they're sort of mesmerizing."


By DOUGLAS JEHL
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company



janet paterson, an akinetic rigid subtype parkie
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