>From the same NOW program on PBS, their segment on wind power in the heartland.
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript147_full.html ================================== MOYERS: In this final season of soft-money giving to political parties in America, big oil and other energy companies gave politicians little incentive to pursue forms of energy that would free America from dependence on foreign oil. It's different in Europe, where the power of the wind is turning a profit for companies that envision an alternative future. With politics in America so beholden to the fossil fuel industry, wind power hasn't had the chance to show what it can do here. But on the plains of Minnesota, some people have decided that nature's own breath can contribute to an energy efficient economy. Producer Rick Field when out to the land of Lake Woebegon, to see what's blowing in the wind. MICHAEL NOBLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ME3: What if Jack Kennedy had said in 1960, "You know, what about maybe going to the moon someday? That might be interesting." Instead he said, "We're gonna put a man on the moon, we're gonna do it by the end of this decade. We're gonna corral the resources of this country to do it." And, sure enough, by July 1969 a man walked on the moon." I'm Michael Noble and I'm the Executive Director of a public interest group in St. Paul, Minnesota. We're called Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy, ME3. And our job is to work with all the different groups, to help change the rules of the game, to move public policy, to clean up our energy system. People always ask, "Well, how do you make electricity? Where does electricity come from?" They think it comes from the electric outlet. And it's really actually not very complicated. You just need to spin a turbine. Make a turbine turn. That's how electricity's made. So, you can turn a turbine with hydropower. And you can make that steam by burning coal, or burning natural gas, or-splitting atoms. But you can also turn a turbine by putting it up on a tower in a windy place. It's a pretty simply way to make electricity. DAN JUHL, PRESIDENT, WOODSTOCK WIND FARMS: We can compete with the conventional fuels-today, especially if you put-the real price of energy on the table-renewable energy is-is by far cheaper. The cost of renewable energy is the cost of capital to put the machine in the ground. There's no fuel, there's no pollution, there's no storage of waste. There's none of the other bones that rattle in the fossil fuel closet. Farming wind energy can be just like farming any other cash crop. And the-like-the technology is ready to do that. We our own wind farm, and we manage that on a daily basis - 10.2 megawatts. Then we also manage for other players-other companies-33 machines on the north end of the Buffalo Ridge. And lately we've been helping farmers and small businesses get into wind power, farming wind as a cash crop and helping them diversify their farms and creating new forms of income. ROGER KAS, KAS BROTHERS WIND FARM, WOODSTOCK, MN: I'm Roger Kas and we farm about 12-15 hundred acres in this area of Woodstock MN. Ten years ago when Dan came to us, and we start working with him, help build his towers and help build a few more towers, and I always kept saying to myself-"Hey, it'd be nice if I could have a couple towers for myself. Why can't us farmers own 'em, be farmer-owned?" MICHAEL NOBLE: Let's say a farmer has a good-sized farm. It's not an enormous farm. But it's a good-sized farm. And let's say they just put two wind turbines on their land. That would take up less than a quarter a percent of the land. It wouldn't take any land out of production at all. But it might be in the range of 30, 40 percent of their income. JIM NICHOLS, FARMER, LINCOLN COUNT, MN: I farmed here on the Buffalo Ridge in Southwest Minnesota my entire life. And if you're a farmer, there's one thing you know for sure. The wind blows. And one of our problems here in Lincoln County, we're the poorest county in the state. We were the poorest county in the state. DAN JUHL: The financing is available for these machines as long as you have a buyer for the commodity, somebody that will buy the electricity. The machines are financable. And they can literally turn tables for the farmer to go from close to bankruptcy to becoming a viable economic entity because of the revenue streams that these things will generate. JIM NICHOLS: Now with the wind turbines, our economy has improved dramatically. This is a chance to produce a product that we can sell to the big cities and it's a crop that we get to the marketplace at the speed of light. New York City is an instant away from the electricity from these turbines. And I believe that 50 years from now, one-third of all the power in America, including New York and all of the East Coast, will come from wind energy, because it's cheap and it's renewable. DAN JUHL: You have to remember that our competitors are the largest monopolies in the world. And they really didn't think it was in anybody's best interest for people to produce their own energy. And wind power represents, and renewable energy basically represents, a dispersed generation source. You really can't put a fence around it and claim it. MICHAEL NOBLE: Over half of America's electricity comes from the burning of coal. Most Americans aren't even aware that coal burning is a major part of their electricity. The American coal industry, and the American oil industry, dominate government today. And the American people need to hear that, and the American people need to do something about that. DAN JUHL: Renewable energy is not ready at this point in time to take out coal. But it can be a very viable part of the mix. And a long term goal to eventually wean ourselves of fossil fuels. We have all of the resources here to do that. We have wind, we have solar, we have bio-fuels. We have all of the tools to do it. JIM NICHOLS: There were three arguments against wind energy, actually four. The first one was that they, aesthetically, they were ugly. They're beautiful. I mean, they're absolutely beautiful. And we think that not just because they help us earn income as farmers, but they are beautiful. The second one was that it was expensive energy. That's not true at all. We're now producing it for 3.3 cents. It's the cheapest new energy in America. The third one was that they're noisy. And the fourth one was that it would kill birds. We actually conducted a year-long study, by South Dakota State University, and in that one year period, not a single bird was killed. We did find two bats that were killed. And we feel bad. But we're gonna get along without those two bats. DAVID BENSON, COUNTY COMMISIONER, NOBLES, MN: The real challenge after you kind of get over the excitement of the technology is how do we integrate it into our society? But what we really could do is by pooling our resources from local people, I think we'd have the opportunity to each benefit. We've got a lot of potential-for real community based-and community owned wind energy. People would accept wind towers, if they had a stake in it, if they felt connected to it, and were making some money from it... ROGER KAS: Well I kind of felt you know all these big companies come in like Enron, and there's got to be a profit or else they wouldn't be doing it, so I more or less said as a farmer, once I saw Dan get his done, he's a small businessman, he's got a small field-why can't we get 'em smaller and have farmers get involved in it, instead of having the big companies, own 'em, and then all the money goes from here to Florida or Texas and out of the district? Keep more of it local and keep it here. MICHAEL NOBLE: Wind power's not a liberal issue. Wind power is an economic issue. It's an issue of development. It's a issue of opportunity. Those are pretty traditional American values. JIM NICHOLS: As farmers, the story that we need to get out is that wind energy is cheap energy, and that it'll be here forever. We don't know for sure, but we think the wind was blowing here a million years ago. And we think it'll be blowing a million years into the future. MICHAEL NOBLE: I want to see a national, renewable energy standard, where the United States Congress-passes it, and the President signs it into a law that 20 percent of America's electricity comes from renewable power in the next two decades. And what we need is we need a leader who's going to say to us, "This country needs to lead the world to a new energy economy that's not based on fossil fuels." It's not gonna do the whole job, it's not a silver bullet. But there's no reason why wind power can't be a major, major part of the solution. ======================= -----Original Message----- From: Karen Watters Cole [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 11:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Harry Pollard; Keith Hudson Subject: RE: The Solar Economy RE: WIND TURBINES ARE SPROUTING OFF EUROPE'S SHORES By MARLISE SIMONS, The New York Times Travel December 8, 2002 Harry, thanks for this article. It has some good updates. Your comment about wishing to see what prices looked like without gov't interferences/ interventions prompts another reply. Unfortunately, if government policy does not encourage it, many independent manufacturers cannot afford or will not bring innovative energy-efficient products to the market without some initial subsidy. As a minor example, the US government subsidized safer, more energy-efficient manufactured housing for almost ten years (c. 1985-95) so that the industry would redesign to meet new electrical codes and install energy-efficient insulation and appliances in this inexpensive (but horribly financed) housing alternative. Dealers were given assistance in marketing their product at energy fairs around the country plus a DOE hotline and publications service for interested buyers. Too many deaths in dangerously outmoded models and too many people freezing in others. Prices have increased now that the subsidy is over, but this industry would not have made the changes without the government in the first place - this product is not a mortgage lending asset since they are financed like cars and boats and depreciate as soon as you drive them off the lot (unless, I'm told, you park it in a side-walk and-driveway subdivision designed for them or even better, on your own property). You can really see the difference as you drive by older trailer parks and newer MH 'subdivisions'. I see a lot of 'doublewides' used on rural property up here, where they are not in danger of periodic flooding and tornadoes, as elsewhere. I know that some city housing agencies have considered building senior neighborhoods of new MH to entice older residents who cannot afford their home and its upkeep but don't want to move into group facilities away from their friends and longtime neighborhoods. The Portland Development Commission has a program to assist low-income homeowners with major repairs at a 3% loan (I wonder if that's been lowered now?) because whole neighborhoods (and thus real estate values and property tax revenues) are threatened when impoverished seniors who live on pennies cannot afford to fix the hole in the roof, replace a dangerous furnace or drain the leaky basement. PDC annually targets neighborhoods based on data from the city tax rolls. There is a critical need for affordable housing everywhere and it's not getting any better - but I'm getting off-topic. A similar process from the US DOE brought European energy-efficient refrigerators, water heaters, furnaces, washers and dryers to the stodgy American market, which has finally encouraged our domestic makers to be more competitive. They didn't do this on their own market foresight or sense of environmentalism. Government policy created the market incentive for them. Too bad Detroit is not as agile. As I recall from past notes, you and I drive Toyotas and get great gas mileage. To me it is sheer stupidity of those dinosaurs to complain that it'll be hard work for them to comply with the new 1.5 mpg improvements by 2005. Have they given up competing with the Japanese and Europeans altogether? Here's a recent story on that: BUSH OKAYS NEW FUEL ECONOMY STANDARDS FOR SUVs @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47253-2002Dec12.html Excerpt: "Automakers now must meet a fleet average fuel economy of 20.7 mpg for SUVs, minivans and pickups, a standard that has been in place since 1996. The proposed requirement will gradually ratchet that up to 22.2 mpg between the 2005 and 2007 model years. The mileage requirement for other passenger vehicles will remain 27.5 miles per gallon, where it has been since 1990. The rule mirrors a proposal sent to the White House for review last month by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Transportation Department agency that administers the program. Spokesmen for the automakers said a 1.5 mpg increase was "a significant increase" and a "daunting" challenge if producers are to continue to provide customers with a wide range of SUVs, including the larger models. "Achieving this standard depends on consumers buying our fuel-efficient vehicles in large numbers," said Gloria Bergquist, spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents the major automakers. End of Excerpt. Both Honda and Toyota took a price loss on every new hybrid vehicle they sold in the US last year just so they could get the model introduced to buyers and others would see it on the road. Apple and Microsoft were similarly insightful when they donated countless computers to schools, thus ensuring kids asked their parents for their brand at home. Gates and Jobs obviously weren't mimicking Detroit. - KWC Outgoing Mail Scanned by NAV 2002
