12/19/08 Harnessing Wind

Harnessing Wind. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. Jess Alger is a Montana farmer who decided to do something about the wind that blows. A few years ago he installed a 10kw wind turbine. ALGER: Well I guess we just have wind and we have pretty good wind here so I thought we could harness it and I just thought that there is such a waste to have so much power in that wind why not harness it so I just thought we should. And then the oil thing too, I don't think we have an unlimited supply of oil. I think we are past our production peak already. Alger says the one turbine supplies almost all of his energy needs. ALGER: Well we just have that 10kw Bergey and I have had it for 5 years now and I only paid one electric bill and I don't quite make enough to do the whole place. Like right now I'm burning the fireplace so I don't have to run the electricity to heat the house because then I would have to pay an electric bill and I guess it's just a matter of pride to me that I don't have to pay an electric bill. Interestingly enough when Alger went to the bank for a loan, they did him a favor by turning him down. ALGER: I found out there were some grants through Montana NW Energy so I got one of those and then I went to the bank and they said well Jess there's a 30 year payback here and granted it's a good thing but you don't really need it, you've got electricity and it's a 30-year payback and we don't think you need to borrow the money for it. So they turned me down which was a good thing it turned out. So then this NW seed came up and said do you want a turbine and I said yes I'd be real interested. I don't know how much it's going to cost me - well not too much they said and that's all they ever told me. Not too much. Bottom line was a cost of only a couple thousand dollars. Alger has attended several of the Harvesting Clean conferences and thinks there is good information available for folks interested in projects like his. And he thinks that there is a future for small groups of farmers going in together on wind projects using larger turbines. ALGER: Well it would help a lot. Although I found out that since I put it up some of these bigger ones like you can buy a used 65kw turbine which is bigger and you need three phase but you can put it up for about the same price as I put up my 10kw. And then on a 65kw if you had enough of those you could have some neighbors go together and make a little company and just sell power to yourselves. For additional information on clean energy and the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy conference, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. For more information about the upcoming 9th annual Harvesting Clean Energy conference visit www.harvestcleanenergy.org/conference. The Conference is January 25-27, 2009 in Billings, MT.