The wind blows constantly
across the Western plains, as anyone who’s driven north from
Denver and across Wyoming can attest. You feel your car needs
alignment until you see the tumbleweeds bustling towards Kansas
City. That’s why America’s heartland has been called
the Saudi Arabia of wind, and that’s why we should be looking
closely at expanding efforts to drill for electricity in that big
sky, not in the ground.
The wind that famously drove
pioneers crazy still blows straight across the upper Green River
basin, where antelope populations are coming into conflict with
natural gas drillers. They’re looking underground for methane
to generate relatively clean electricity. But wind power is
cleaner, and leaves the antelope alone.
The wind blows
across North Dakota, a state in which declining population belies
the fact that, separated from the nation, it would be the
world’s third largest nuclear power. North Dakota’s
economy isn’t exactly cranking these days, with big
mechanized farms covering most of the state and an aging
population. (You’ll often find summer sausages next to the
checkout stand there, not Bic lighters and
People magazine. If you’re 80 and drive a
Lincoln Continental, the sausage is probably more appealing.) Wind
power generation could help farmers make more cash but keep
farming, and provide a new economy in the West that taps the
mechanical expertise of ex-agricultural workers and gas drillers.
The wind blows across cattle range in Nebraska, where
family ranchers often find it hard to go beyond break-even
business. Ranchers in Weld County, Colo., have put up turbines to
bring in a little more cash: The cows graze around them.
There is another big reason to make the West a wind power Mecca
— a big and growing market for renewable power. On Jan. 11,
the No. 1 natural foods grocery chain Whole Foods stunned the
business world by purchasing renewable wind energy credits equal to
all the electricity the company uses in its 180 stores.
That’s about 458 million kilowatt-hours, or enough to power
54,000 homes all year. Those credits subsidize renewable
electricity generation. As more businesses and individuals buy
credits, the demand will cause more wind to be generated.
On the same day that Whole Foods made its announcement, FedEx
Kinkos announced it would expand wind energy purchases to cover 14
percent of its U.S. electricity needs. The list of big, smart
businesses buying wind power goes on: Starbucks, Safeway, Johnson
and Johnson, Staples. Each is profitable, well managed and the
leader in its business sector. Unless the top corporate minds in
the country are wrong, wind power makes sense.
Some
Western states get it, and have passed “renewable portfolio
standards” that require a certain amount of renewably generated
power by a given date. Texas, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico,
California and most recently, Colorado, have such standards.
Still, some “free market” politicians oppose renewable
energy targets because they see them as mandates. But that presumes
wind energy and other renewables have been competing on a level
playing field. Not even close. The watchdog group Taxpayers for
Common Sense has highlighted 16 federal subsidies that give coal,
oil, and natural gas over $5 billion per year. And the new federal
energy bill, which New York Times columnist Tom
Friedman calls “the sum of all lobbies,” is chock full of fossil
fuel and nuclear subsidies. A renewable portfolio standard simply
levels the playing field. At least, that’s what George Bush
thought when he enacted a similar standard in Texas.
Wind
isn’t the be-all of energy solutions. After all, the wind
only blows about a third of the time, a fact that has probably
spared many plains-dwellers from insanity. Wind is also
inextricably linked to its opposite: fossil-fuel generated
electricity, which is required to cover a windmill’s
downtime. But wind is a part of the solution, and it’s an
approach to energy supply that taps a long Western tradition of
using our bountiful resources to benefit humanity. Used to looking
down at coal seams, ore deposits, aquifers and forests for
prosperity and hope, Westerners don’t need to change their
approach, just the angle of their head.
Auden
Schendler is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News (hcn.org). He lives in Basalt,
Colorado, and is the director of environmental affairs at Aspen
Skiing Co., which buys 5 percent of its electricity as wind
power.
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