The Short Path to Oil Independence

(Page 3 of 3)

February/March 2005
By Lester R. Brown 
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Some 22 states now have commercial-scale wind farms feeding electricity into the grid. Although there is occasionally a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) problem, the PIIMBY (Put It In My Back Yard) response is much more pervasive. This is not surprising, since a single turbine can easily produce $100,000 worth of electricity in a year. The competition among farmers in Iowa or ranchers in Colorado for wind farms is intense. Farmers, with no investment on their part, typically receive $3,000 a year in royalties from the local utility for siting a single wind turbine, which occupies a quarter-acre of land. This quarter-acre in corn country would produce 40 bushels of corn worth $120 or in ranch country perhaps $10 worth of beef.

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Communities in rural America desperately want to earn the additional revenue from wind farms and the jobs they bring. In addition, money spent on electricity generated from wind farms stays in the community, creating a ripple effect throughout the local economy. Within a matter of years, thousands of farmers could be earning far more from electricity sales than from farming.

Moving to highly efficient gas-electric hybrids with plug-in capacity, combined with the construction of thousands of wind farms across the country that feed electricity into a national grid, will give us the energy security that has eluded us for three decades. It also will rejuvenate farm and ranch communities, and shrink the U.S. balance-of-trade deficit. Even more important, it will dramatically cut carbon emissions, making the United States a model that other countries can emulate.

Lester R. Brown is the founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute.

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Comments

  • W.. 11/14/2007 5:44:42 AM

    The writer comments that 55mpg on a hybrid is "astonishing". We
    have a 2000 Golf TDI that has given us, over 120K miles, and
    AVERAGE of 51 mpg. A relatively simple design; the car cost ~$17K
    new. We expect the Golf to give us about 300K miles. Compare that
    to a very comples hybrid that cost around $30K and will need a new
    and very expensive battery long before it reaches 300K miles.

  • Bush_2008 11/13/2007 6:17:41 PM

    The author states: "The average turbine in 1991 was roughly 120
    feet tall, whereas new ones are 300 feet tall — the height of a
    30-story building. Not only does this more than double the amount
    of harvestable wind." HUH?? By my amateur calculations the
    "harvestable wind" would increase by a factor of more than six.
    Wind power is directly proportional to the square of the blade
    diameter. Zobeid states: "But just as the country's hydro potential
    is pretty much tapped out, it won't be long before wind is too."
    Upon which resource(s) are you basing that conclusion. Even
    replacing existing smaller turbines with the previously mentioned
    larger ones would give a sixfold increase. The currently used areas
    not to mention all the unused areas in the great plains and Texas
    etc. are certainly not tapped out. See the oilendgame.com for Amory
    Lovins free downloadable book.

  • Zobeid 11/13/2007 11:16:05 AM

    I don't believe it. I don't believe wind power can scale up to
    level implied by this article. I doubt whether we can produce
    enough wind power to replace the nuclear plants that are up for
    decommissioning soon, and I doubt whether we can produce enough
    wind power to replace coal (which we definitely need to replace
    with something cleaner), and I doubt even more whether we can do
    all that with wind and power our cars too. Wind is a limited,
    localized resources, much like hydro power. Hydro power is great in
    areas that have a lot of water, and wind power is great in areas
    that have a lot of wind. Those regions are already being staked
    out. But just as the country's hydro potential is pretty much
    tapped out, it won't be long before wind is too. To power our
    electrical grid -- and our cars -- in the future, we need to look
    at clean energy sources with larger potential: solar, geothermal,
    nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion.

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