Chicago may be known as the windy city, but Falcon can certainly hold its own when it comes to feeling the breeze. But being out on the eastern plains in all this wind may someday provide a nice chunk of change to local land owners, the farther east and down wind they are.The source of this revenue is the same gusts that blow tumbleweeds across Highway 24 all spring.The wind industry has been in high gear nationwide for the last couple of years, thanks in large part to a federal wind energy production tax credit. Companies will be able to enjoy this incentive until the end of 2005 and so far Colorado is one of many states reaping the benefits.In March 2004, the nation’s fifth largest wind farm began catching the breeze in Lamar, Colo. The Colorado Green Wind Project wind farm, when operating at full capacity provides Xcel Energy with the bulk of its 162 megawatts (MW) of electricity. This is enough to power around 50,000 homes and businesses, or a city roughly the size of Littleton.Xcel is also in the process of reviewing “requests for proposal” (RFP) from three different companies for about 400 megawatts of new wind power for Colorado. “This is actually going to be announced fairly soon, within the next month or so,” said Margarita Alarcon, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy.”As a long time supporter of renewable energies we are actually one of the leading companies, the second largest reseller of wind power in the U.S.,” Alarcon said.Also, in 2004, voters made Colorado the first state in the nation to pass renewable portfolio standard (RPS) legislation by popular referendum. Amendment 37 will require Colorado utility companies to obtain 10 percent of the states power needs from renewable resources by the end of 2015. This legislation is tailor-made for wind energy from the Lamar plant, which may lead to major expansions at the site.All told, seven states plus Washington D.C. passed RPS legislation in 2004, mandating a certain portion of the state’s energy come from renewables, such as wind and solar power. This brings the total up to 18 states plus the District.Initially, renewable energy technology gained the right to sit with the big boys, coal, nuclear and natural gas, in 1997. That year, 150 nations signed a treaty that was designed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, and so far, wind energy has been the biggest beneficiary.According to the American Wind Energy Association, by the end of 2004 wind farms in 30 states across the country were producing 6,740 MW, enough to fully service the energy needs of 1.6 million households.The reason: The benefits of wind energy stretch from the environmental to the financial for both Coloradoans and the rest of the country.Environmental effects from wind energy, which is produced by huge turbines that turn rotors to create electricity similar to the way fossil fuels, such as coal, use steam to turn rotors, are virtually non-existent. Wind energy does not create “dead water” as a by-product and does not require that the land be pillaged in order to obtain the fuel source.On the financial side, land owners who lease their land to wind farms receive a royalty of about $3,000 per turbine per year, and the property tax base that the wind farms create for rural counties such as Prowers, where Lamar is located, is substantial.There also are long-term benefits to power companies, depending on how one reads between the lines. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a Cambridge Massachusetts nonprofit association, the cost to provide electricity from wind is expected to see an increase of $4.5 million over the next two decades. This averages out to a one-hundredth of a percent increase on a customer’s bill. This is compared to the 2004 26 percent price hike that Xcel announced its customers would have to pay for natural gas.Wind power will never cost more to produce, and there will always be a steady supply. Power companies and consumers could rely on consistent long-term profits and pricing.Wind turbines begin to create electricity at wind speeds of about 10 miles per hour, and they are being improved all the time.This makes Colorado, and more aptly the Colorado eastern plains, the perfect site for wind farms like the Lamar plant.Even so, Xcel is not certain if the additional 400 megawatts of wind power they are pursuing will come from turbines located within the state.One Coloradoan, on the other hand, has a more grand vision for the wind industry as it relates to the state, its’ residents and the economy.Paul D. Kendall is a long-time energy activist and believes the eastern plains have an “immeasurable potential” to become a cash cow for Colorado and the renewable energy field.The plot of land Kendall refers to is a 300-by-140 mile chunk of Colorado. “If you look at that as a giant oil deposit, you would be a very wealthy person,” he believes. “Well, if you flip that oil up onto the surface, and treat it like a pancake and turn it into wind you are even wealthier.”Imagining that the snowball continues to roll down hill, Kendall would like Colorado to expand on the foundations that have been laid by the Lamar plant, and turn the entire eastern part of the state into the largest wind farm the world has ever seen.”You (Colorado) have the ability to become your own wind energy company,” Kendall asserted.The vision that Kendall sees has been modeled after the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. The state of Alaska created a corporation that gets a piece of the action from the sell of all the oil that leaves their borders, Kendall said. The state then invests this money in various commercial activities and funnels 5 percent of the profits back into the state.He believes that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation has over $28 billion dollars ready to invest in projects like the world’s largest wind farm.According to cogreenpower.org, Colorado has the 11th greatest potential wind resource of any state in the country, the equivalent of being able to generate around 481 billion kWh of electricity per year from the wind.The Web site also estimates that each Colorado family uses 500 to 600 kilowatt hours per month. When one takes into account there are a little more than 1.25 million single-family homes in the residential population of Colorado, the state uses roughly 9 billion kWh of electricity a year residentially. The difference is more than 450 billion kWh of electricity per year.However, this does have to be taken into context since commercial activities in any state require the lion’s share of electricity.Nonetheless, Kendall believes this excess energy could someday lead to $28 billion of capital that the “Colorado Wind Energy Company,” could reinvest back into the community in the same fashion the Alaska Permanent Fund does. Kendall cites other benefits that could be gained from being the home of the world’s largest renewable energy factory. The creation of a research and development Mecca for clean energy would be a likely spin-off for economic development.”With low velocity wind turbine research and solar farms, you have scientists coming in from all over the area,” Kendall said. “Universities are going to want to get in on it also.”Tourism is another area that may be impacted as well.”If you think we could have the largest wind farm in the world,” Kendall said, “then you have publicity to die for.”Ultimately, Kendall believes the eastern plains could contain $10 to 20 billion worth of wind turbines, and, at full throttle it would be more than a 10-year project. The end result would be an inexhaustible, clean energy source for Colorado. Plus, eastern plains towns and landowners may be reimbursed for the trouble of living in the wind.
