Rock Port’s Loess Hills Wind Farm was built by the Wind Capital Group, and employed 500 workers from 20 states for about a year. Its four 1.25 MW wind turbines will generate 16 gigawatt hours (16 million kilowatt hours) of electricity annually. Since Rock Port’s energy needs are quite a bit less than that, the excess power will be purchased by Missouri Public Utility Alliance, the local electric company.

Rock Port, Missouri, is about half-way between St. Joseph, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska. Located in rolling agricultural country, the city is home to some 1,400 residents. “Small town” you might say, no wonder they got together to get the place 100% wind powered. If that were the case then, why are there not hundreds of RockPorts 100% powered by wind all over the United States?

What makes Rock Port special? To be honest, several factors made this smaller scale project possible. The city has a bluff within the city limits with good resources, John Deere’s Wind Energy is financing the project, and Rock Port is not that far from the power grid. But if it weren’t for Eric Chamberlain – one person with an idea and the drive to make it happen – Rock Port would likely still be just another sleepy “show me” town.

Click here for Rock Port’s project announcement.

Click here for the Rock Port city website.

On the green side:
Iowa Governor Chet Culver has stated, “My goal is that 25 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2025.”

There are 1,000 wind turbines in operation and five wind technology companies located in Iowa. And, the state is currently one of only two in the US that are manufacturing turbines, blades and towers – the three main components needed for wind energy.

Wind power has already been very, very, good to Iowa. Clipper Windpower, a California-based company, opened its Cedar Rapids Iowa plant in 2006. The 330,000-square-foot facility employs 300 workers, built 150 of Clipper’s 2.5-megawatt turbines in 2007, and is on track to make more than 300 wind turbines in 2008. The company plans to double production to 600 turbines by 2010 and wants to open a second plant by 2010.

Wind power related jobs come with production facilities. Plant manager Bob Lloyd, says that companies like Clipper Windpower will need turbine operation and maintenance specialists, electrical assemblers, electrical engineers, mechanical assemblers, mechanical engineers and procurement/supply chain professionals to reach production goals. And that’s just for producing turbines. A whole other range of job specialties are needed to assess, site, install and maintain those turbines wherever they go afterwards.

Wind power related posts on this website point to the potential for Iowa to be really on the leading edge of wind energy with the Iowa Stored Energy Park – one of only three in the world.

And Governor Culver says,

“A recent study showed that there will be more than $20 billion of wind projects undertaken within 600 miles of Iowa in the next seven years. We can use these opportunities to meet Iowa’s energy needs and chart our own course towards energy independence.”

So with all these pluses for Iowa in wind energy, why is it that a dark cloud hangs over this green-goal state?

Why is it that the current Iowa legislative session has been “very disappointing legislatively” regarding renewable energy issues?

“The aggregation of the large utility companies around coal captured the attention of legislators. We couldn’t get much traction around renewable energy,” claimed Ed Woolsey of Green Prairie Energy, on Iowa Public TV’s “Wind Energy in Iowa” (#153) show on The Iowa Journal.

The Iowa Public Interest Research Group claims that:

• Iowa utility companies, and even out-of-state power companies are proposing new coal plants across Iowa.
• Iowa gets nearly 90 percent of electricity from coal, despite vast wind, sun and biomass potential.
• Iowa’s power comes from coal imported from other states. Iowans pay $310 million to import that coal. 
• Iowa power plants emit over 125,000 tons of soot forming sulfur dioxide, and 39 million tons of global warming pollution.
• Iowa could produce nearly five times its electrical power needs from wind alone, which would allow us to export clean power to other states.

Do we really need more coal plants in Iowa?

According to Ed Woolsey,

• It takes 7 years from planning to actually building a large scale wind energy production facility.
• The European Model – distributed wind systems – can be built faster than a large scale facility and increase our wind capacity sooner.
• Distributed wind systems are small – from one to a small handful of turbines; community owned wind generation; schools, communities, hospitals, plants – each generating their own power.
• We need to move toward more widespread adoption of distributed wind systems in Iowa.
• We need to rally the general population so that many voices are heard in the Iowa capital.
• We need to make wind energy a campaign issue.
• AND, we need to organize at the grassroots level to push adoption of wind power in Iowa from the bottom up.

So what can you do? Take a look at our Seventeen Steps to Success and put on your thinking caps. You CAN make a difference!

In a crisp and color-filled Power Point format, everything you wanted to know about the State of the States’ Wind Power is available here in Larry Flowers’ Wind Powering America February 2008 Update. It will knock your socks off!

Using great photos and easy-to-understand charts and graphics, the state of commercial wind technology in the US is spread out there for everyone to follow.

The WPA 2008 Udate shows:

• The evolution of commerical wind technology in the US
• How wind capacity in megawatts has increased while costs have decreased
• How the US leads the world in annual wind capacity additions
• But, lags behind other countries for wind energy production as a percentage of electricity consumption
• How US installed wind capacity in 2007 compares to where we were in 1999

On the more nitty gritty issues, Larry answers:

• What are the drivers for wind power?
• What are the costs of energy production via wind, natural gas and coal?
• How does wind energy affect economic development?
• What are the environmental benefits of wind power?

Larry wraps it up with:

• Case studies and local ownership models
• Key issues for wind power

And hits home on the 20 percent wind-electricity vision including:

• Market challenges
• Job creation
• Water savings
• Carbon savings

In 2003-2004 I worked with WPA through the Montana Wind Working Group that Larry helped get started rolling. He is a passionate advocate – but with deep enough knowledge on the many issues that need to be considered.  If you are working on a wind agenda, make sure you spend a good bit of time at the Wind Powering America website. And, introduce your agenda and issues to Larry Flowers. I know he will do all he can to help you find the right information, people and equipment to make sure your project is a success.  

The 5 top windiest states in the US are (in order), North Dakota, Texas, Kansas, South Dakota, and Montana. Yet, according to the American Wind Energy Association, at the end of 2005, the 5 top states in the US capturing wind to generate power were (in order at that time) California, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. (Note: Texas has likely surpassed California since the 2005 data.)

Of course there are a lot of reasons why the windiest states have not yet tapped their potential, while states with less potential are maximizing what they have. But in terms of your own project, no matter where you live you must be prepared to answer a key question everyone of your stakeholders, supporters and resistors will ask:

What’s the quality of the wind in your target location?
Wind Powering America’s State Wind Resource Maps, the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States, and anemometer monitoring wind quality at the project site itself will give you enough information to answer anyone who questions your project location. And, doing this homework to prepare for meetings with stakeholders, potential allies and resistors will give you the confidence to know that the site you have chosen really does have enough wind to warrant pushing forward.