07/11/08 20% By 2030

20% By 2030. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. I was recently asked by someone if renewable energy was really making any difference. That is a valid question given the enormity of our demand for energy and in some cases the amount that renewable energy is contributing to the overall picture is kind of like the ant and the elephant. But bottom line it is making a difference. Ed DeMeo, President of Renewable Energy Consulting Services says there is a push now for 20% of our energy to come from wind power by 2030. DeMEO: This is an effort that took place over 2 years that actually started in earnest in June of '06 involving the American Wind Energy Association and the Department of Energy and their national laboratories and about a hundred people from the wind community around the country. And for a year and a half or so these folks really looked hard at the question of can the country do 20% electricity from wind power and there are a lot of skeptics about that. Obviously wind generation is variable so creating a consistent output would be difficult but bottom line that group found that it is do-able. DeMEO: There is a modest incremental cost to the country based on the cost assumption we made for all the different kinds of power generation; technologies that are around. But the benefits from it would far out weigh any incremental costs and there may not be any incremental costs when you come right down to it. Logistically, what would be involved in making an effort like this happen? DeMEO: We talking a lot more turbines. We're talking probably 6 or 7 times more turbines than there are today. It's 15 or 20 times more electricity but the turbines are getting bigger with time and it would require a significant expansion of the electrical transmission system in the country in order to access the wind resources that tend to be in remote areas. DeMeo says that there has been a push already to expand the transmission system since there hasn't been much growth in the last 20 years. For rural communities wind projects are a real win-win. DeMEO: The farmers who least the land to the wind plants they get quite a significant income from these things. Now the other thing that happens is that these installations produce property taxes. Rural communities find themselves taking in for them, relatively substantial amounts of money that allow them to build a new school or a new town center. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org