Conscious Choice: Wind Energy: New Cash Crop for Farmers

September 2002 | News of the Earth

Wind Energy: New Cash Crop for Farmers

by Dave Aftandilian

For once environmentalists and businesspeople agree on a renewable power source whose time has come: wind energy. As Alex Markels reported in the July/August 2002 issue of Mother Jones, "After decades of belittling wind as a puny and unreliable energy source, American Electric Power and other major companies are scrambling to cash in on what is now the world’s fastest-growing source of electric power. Multinationals like Shell and General Electric are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in wind operations from Washington State to Massachusetts."

What’s powering the wind revolution? In the early 1980s, wind-generated electricity cost $0.38 per kilowatt-hour; today, it costs between $0.03 and $0.06, comparable to or in some areas even less than fossil fuel-generated electricity’s $0.02 to $0.05. Cheaper and more efficient wind turbines are the main reason wind energy has become more cost-effective; the research and development needed to achieve those technological improvements was spurred in part by a wind energy tax credit first passed by Congress in 1992, and recently renewed.

Utilities, businesses, and governments that want to lock in a stable price for electric power are turning to wind because prices for natural gas and even coal often fluctuate wildly. And the many states and municipalities that require their utilities to generate some portion of their electricity from renewable sources have also convinced major investors to jump on the wind bandwagon. Unfortunately, Illinois is not one of these states, although Illinois has set a nonbinding goal of producing 5 percent of its energy from renewables by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020.

National and international environmental concerns have also made wind power look more attractive. As I mentioned a couple months ago in this column, a number of scientific studies have linked coal-fired power plant pollution and adverse human health effects, including premature death. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health released last year showed that fine-particle pollution from nine coal-fired power plants in Illinois were linked to an estimated 300 deaths, 13,900 asthma attacks, 2,600 emergency room visits, and 500,000 incidents of upper respiratory disease each year. Similar patterns can be found all over the country. Add the environmental and public health costs of mining coal, uranium, or other nonrenewable fuels, and wind power starts to look a whole lot cheaper. And wind power produces no greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, which is making it extremely popular among nations that, unlike the United States, realize the importance of taking steps before global warming causes widespread flooding, crop loss, or more serious disasters.

Lester R. Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and president of the Earth Policy Institute, wrote in Grist Magazine that "Cheap electricity produced from wind can also be used to electrolyze water, thereby producing hydrogen, which is now widely viewed as the fuel of the future. With automobiles powered by fuel-cell engines expected on the market within a few years, and with hydrogen as the fuel of choice for these engines, a huge new market is opening up.... Farms and ranches may one day supply the hydrogen that will power the nation’s motor vehicle fleet, giving the U.S. the energy source needed to declare its independence from Middle Eastern oil."

Sustainable Development for the Heartland

What makes wind power especially exciting for farmers, ranchers, and other rural landowners is that leasing a portion of their land for "planting" wind turbines can give them a dependable source of additional income, while still allowing them to use almost all their land for crops or grazing. That will mean fewer family farms will go under, which will result in less suburban sprawl into farmland. Each wind turbine takes up just a quarter acre of land, and can generate $2,000 to $3,000 in guaranteed royalties every year, whether or not it is actually producing electricity. That’s often more than farmers could earn from crops planted on that land. As one Iowa farmer described a wind turbine, "It’s like having an oil well in the sky." Owners of the turbines also pay local property taxes, and often hire local contractors to assemble the turbines; much of that money will help revitalize rural communities.

Chicago’s own Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) has long recognized the potential for using renewable energy generation as a sustainable development tool for the Heartland. Its visionary plan, "Repowering the Midwest: The Clean Energy Development Plan for the Heartland", provides a blueprint for increasing investment in renewable energy development to reduce pollution, increase stability of our energy sources, and provide new sources of income for farmers and new jobs for rural areas.

ELPC’s bright ideas have not gone unnoticed in Washington. To work on the 2002 Farm Bill, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) invited ELPC to help develop plans to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy development on America’s farms. The result was the largest federal investment in renewable energy in more than two decades: $405 million for energy-efficiency programs, bio-based fuels, and clean energy development, including financial incentives for wind power generation for both on-farm use and sale to utilities. Provisions in other parts of the new Farm Bill allowed wind turbines to be installed on land set aside via the Conservation Reserve Program, and made farm and ranch-based renewable energy products eligible for the Value-Added Agricultural Products Market Development Program, which has received $240 million over six years. (For more details on the 2002 Farm Bill, see July 2002’s News of the Earth, or read ELPC’s analysis.)

"The Farm Bill’s new renewable energy development and energy efficiency programs show that a clean environment and rural economic development go hand-in-hand," says the ELPC’s Howard Learner. "Farmers and ranchers can increase their income by developing wind power and biomass energy cash crops on their lands and can save money by becoming more energy efficient in their operations. This is a win-win-win for farmers, rural economic development, and the environment.... The legislation provides new value-added opportunities for farmers and ranchers to form cooperatives and participate as equity partners in new businesses to sell renewable energy sources like wind power and biomass. That’s the sort of economic development that will keep our rural communities strong and healthy, both environmentally and economically."

Wind in Illinois

The powers that be in Illinois have also realized the wisdom of providing incentives for the development of renewable energy in the state. A number of programs administered through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs offer grants to pay part of the cost of wind energy projects. Some funds are also available through grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Trust, and a special property tax assessment ensures that wind and other renewable energy projects are valued at no more than conventional energy systems.

Although Illinois was once thought to contain few areas that were windy enough to repay the costs of installing utility-scale wind farms, new wind resource maps recently released by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory show that the state has at least 3,000 megawatts (MW) of "good" wind resources (where winds average between 15.7 and 16.8 miles per hour) that are ready for development now, and about 6,000 MW more that will likely repay development in the near future, as the technology of wind turbines and transmission lines continues to improve. Prime windy sites include areas northwest of Chicago and west of Waukegan, between Sterling and Aurora, north of Peoria, near Bloomington, and southeast of Quincy. All these sites are in the central or northern portions of the state, relatively close to large population centers; this is important because the longer the transmission lines between where electricity is generated and where it is consumed, the more power will be lost along the way.

So far no wind farms have been built in Illinois, but that’s about to change. In June, ComEd, Illinois Wind Energy, and Tomen Power Corporation announced plans to build the first commercial wind farm in Illinois at Crescent Ridge in rural Bureau County, about 110 miles west of Chicago. The project, scheduled for completion by mid-2003, will install thirty-four wind turbines on 2,200 acres of farmland (although fewer than twenty acres will actually be covered by turbines and access roads; almost all the rest of the land can still be farmed). Each turbine can produce up to 1.5 MW of electricity. ComEd has agreed to buy all 51 MW the project could generate — enough to power about 20,000 homes. According to Illinois Wind Energy, compared to other Illinois power-generating facilities, the Crescent Ridge Wind Farm will avoid the production of approximately 1.35 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, 0.525 million pounds of nitrogen oxides, and 250 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

In July, Governor Ryan announced that the state had given Navitas Energy a $2.75 million grant to develop a utility-scale wind farm at Mendota Hills in rural Lee County, about eighty miles west of Chicago. The project is expected to add $50 million to the local tax base and provide $130,000 in annual lease payments to area landowners. It will also create thirty temporary construction jobs and six permanent skilled operations and maintenance jobs. When completed, Mendota Hills will generate enough energy to supply 15,000 homes; it will also avoid the emission of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases. Electricity from the project will be sold through ComEd. Turbine installation should start in 2003.

Get More Info

American Wind Energy Association

Environmental Law and Policy Center

Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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