Energy standard boosts rural Kansas, why not Ohio?

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Energy standard boosts rural Kansas
BY CHUCK HASSEBROOK
A proposal that would increase wind generation of electricity is the most significant legislation before Congress this year for bringing jobs and revitalization to rural Kansas.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., did the right thing last week by voting in support of a renewable electricity standard. It would require that a very modest 11 percent of the nation's electricity come from wind and other renewable sources. And Brownback stood firm when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee considered a number of amendments designed to weaken the boost for wind energy in the bill.
Western Kansas is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. Dodge City is the nation's windiest city, according to the National Climatic Data Center. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Kansas has the third-greatest overall potential among the states for wind-energy production, and western Kansas is the best of the best.
Neither coal nor nuclear provides the economic boost that rural Kansas needs. No area has a bigger stake in legislation before Congress to increase renewable electric generation.
Wind energy means increased economic opportunity in rural areas. A Department of Energy study envisions Kansas becoming a major exporter of wind-generated electricity. It concluded that ramping up wind generation to 20 percent of the nation's electricity would create 3,100 permanent jobs in rural Kansas.
Seven times that many jobs would be created during wind turbine construction. Farmers and ranchers with turbines on their land would receive rental payments of $21 million annually ($5,000 per turbine each year), and potentially more in profits, if allowed to share in the ownership of wind turbines.
Rural America -- especially the western Kansas wind belt -- would be a big winner from an ambitious standard for renewable wind energy production. So would the rest of the nation.
Renewable energy serves the common good. It addresses the very real threats of reduced crop production and extreme weather damage, including lives lost, from climate change.
Though there are skeptics, the world's leading climate scientists have concluded that it is 90 percent likely that fossil-fuel emissions are causing climate change. We won't know with 100 percent certainty until it's too late to do anything about it. That makes it imperative that we take commonsense, practical steps now, like investing in wind-energy development.
Wind energy is practical. The Department of Energy study, published by the Bush administration, concluded that building a strong national transmission system largely would overcome the problem of local variability in wind and wind-electric generation. And wind electricity is affordable. The study estimated that we could pay off the costs of the new turbines and transmission lines with savings in fuel costs, plus about 50 cents per U.S. household per month.
That's a small price to pay for significant progress in addressing the very real threat of climate change and revitalizing rural America.
Chuck Hassebrook is the executive director for the Center for Rural Affairs, based in Lyons, Neb.
Rural Areas across Ohio and all America can benefit from wind and solar power! That's why a yes vote in the Senate will be important to all America when the Energy Bill hits the Senate floor later this year!

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/