November 2, 2000

Iowa wind production rises
as production costs fall

Jessica Tarbox
digital iowa staff reporter
Drake University

DES MOINES, Iowa — Gas prices are up, and everyone who drives any sort of vehicle can attest to that. Fossil fuels are not very good for the environment, and everyone who has seen smog draped over a skyline knows that. Many of our nonrenewable resources are quickly depleting, and everyone who has a blue recycling bin understands that.

There is also, however, an energy source that is ultimately cheaper, cleaner and unlimited, and in a few years, many more people across the country will also know about that.

Wind power is an energy source that has been used in some capacity for hundreds of years. But it was not until the last few decades that the largely untapped treasure of wind was considered as an alternate source of energy in the United States and was then brought to life in the form of turbines and wind farms across the nation.

The economic and environmental benefits of wind are many, according to the Department of Energy, and recently the department has prioritized wind power and has set several goals to introduce it as one of the "preferred electricity supply options." By the year 2020, the energy department intends to weave wind power into the nation's energy system by providing 5 percent of the nation's electricity with wind, creating 80,000 jobs and displacing 35 million tons of atmospheric carbon.

The central region of the United States has the potential to be the primary producers of wind power. Every state in the nation has the resources to harness some wind energy, but states such as North Dakota, which has abundant enough resources to supply 36 percent of the electrical consumption of the 48 contingent states, are the oil wells of wind power.

Iowa is the 10th windiest state in the nation, but due to increases in the number of wind farms and turbines in the state in the last 10 years - most recently, in the completion of 257 turbines in Buena Vista and Cherokee counties and 56 in Cerro Gordo County, and in the pending approval of another 100 kilowatt farm in Hancock County - Iowa is now the third largest producer of electricity from wind in the country, behind California and Minnesota.

From 1990 to 1999, wind energy production in Iowa increased 1200 percent and since 1981, the price of wind-powered electricity in the state has dropped from 25 cents per kilowatt hour to five to eight cents per kilowatt hour.

"We've always been one of the leaders in wind development," said Ward Lenz, energy data analyst for the Energy Bureau of the Department of Natural Resources. "It was 1992 when the first large-scale wind turbine was put in, and it's been slowly growing since then."

Wind is a renewable resource, which, under definition, means that it will continue to be replaced at about the rate it is being used. The energy is harnessed by the spinning rotor, or blades, and is directed into a generator, where the energy is stored. Electricity is generated when wind speeds reach nine miles per hour, and the turbine continues to produce increasing amounts of power until wind speeds reach 30 to 35 miles per hour, at which point the turbines reach their output capacity. The amount of energy is measured in kilowatt hours or megawatts; the terms describe the wind power density in watts per square meter, which accounts for both wind speed and the distribution of wind over time.

Iowa's wind resources are capable of producing more than 4.8 times its annual energy consumption, according to a report by the Iowa Chapter of the Izaak Walton League. Thirty-two wind farms and private turbines are located across the state, with the highest concentration in the central and northwest regions. The Alta wind farms, for example, are located in the windiest part of the state, the northwest, and the combined efforts of all three farms are capable of producing approximately 190,000 kilowatt hours each year.

If Alta wind farms, and other Iowa wind farms like it, produce to their potential, wind power in the state will be capable of powering almost 70,000 homes more cheaply and with less pollutants. It is unlikely, according to Lenz, that wind will ever be the sole provide of energy in Iowa, despite its potential.

"As for providing all the energy, I don't think that will ever happen," he said. "Even now, it's less than 2 percent of Iowa's energy. But we are confident that it will play a larger and larger role in the mix." Declining costs will also play a part in wind power's role, Lenz said, and make it more competitive with other fuels.

As cost-effective and environmentally safe as it is, wind power is not without its complications. The most common complaints, according to the energy department, are the noise pollution created by the rotors, the lack of aesthetic appeal, and the risk of bird mortality as birds fly into the rotors.

The energy department argues, however, that because on most occasions the turbines are sited in remote locations, the noise and aesthetics do not affect large numbers of people. Avian mortality raises greater concern, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is conducting research to address this issue and to prevent both a decline in bird populations and violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Endangered Species Act.

A study recently completed at the Algona, Iowa wind farm, Lenz said, determined that avian mortality is not a problem in Iowa. "People went out there literally to count birds," he said, "and they didn't find one single instance of bird kills."

Despite these concerns, the state of Iowa has embraced the advantages of wind energy, and at a time when fossil fuels are becoming more expensive and more scarce, Iowa is doing its part, as one of the forerunners of wind energy in the country, to begin the shift from nonrenewable resources to the clean, renewable resource of wind.