Palouse Wind Project

Palouse Wind Project

Palouse Wind Project. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

More and more ag producers are discovering the benefits of wind generation on their land. Ken Hanson is a farmer and a businessman in the Palouse region of eastern Washington State discusses the current Palouse Wind Project.

HANSON: It’s a renewable resource of energy for the community, for the nation if you will based here in the Palouse. It has the advantage, I think, in our area of being focused on hilltops so it’s unlike a oil and gas reserve. I’m originally from Canada and when you get oil and gas they tend to put the wells where they want to see then and regardless of what the potential is for productivity.

Hanson says in this case the sites tend to be high spots in fields that are usually not very productive so this is a win-win situation.

HANSON: We’re still able to farm the ground and yet there’s an alternating source of income from the wind that’s produced and in short, anybody who has farmed here has fought the wind all their life - lost at times thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per year because of wind damage or shatter or whatever and here’s an opportunity for the farmer and the landowner to recoup some of those.

If you think about it, Hanson says that we have been using wind power for generations.

HANSON: Our forefathers utilized wind power to power homes and to pump livestock water and most of us as kids have probably taken a dip in the stock tank that had water going into it from a windmill. It’s not that this is new, it’s really just a continuation of going back to where we were if you would and of course we have this idea that we can continue to draw all our energy from a hole in the ground is probably not realistic long term.

There are hopes that the Palouse Wind Project will generate up to 100 megawatts of power but not everyone is as open to projects like this.

HANSON: There’s been some comments about that this can lessen property values and if anything in the reports that I have seen it actually increases the property values and certainly the tax base is increased and these communities particularly in eastern Washington rural communities, we need all the increase in tax base that we can have. We need that revenue for our schools and for roads and everything else and we certainly need the jobs this will provide

For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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