Backbone > Sustainability
The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind

photo by Roy Gumpel
Wind energy is a safe, abundant, renewable resource.

One of the hallmarks of sustainability is that ideas—like nature itself—are endlessly recyclable. That’s why outdated historical models and methods, often discarded in favor of more complex and therefore assumedly “better” forms of technology, are frequently revived to become today’s innovations. Take wind power, for instance. Used for milling grain a century ago, windmills have made a comeback as sources of clean, green energy.

In Scandinavia, other parts of Europe, and at an increasing number of locations throughout the US, wind turbines are being used today to generate electricity. Not only is wind energy devoid of any of the harmful air emissions, other forms of pollution, and safety issues associated with oil, coal, or nuclear power plant-produced electricity, but it costs significantly less to produce than solar energy, the leading alternative energy competitor.

Wind power came to the US about 20 years ago, with a wind turbine erected on the beach in Altamont, California. The results of that initial experiment were encouraging, but somewhat less than perfect. The turbine’s blades were small compared to the 100-foot-long blades used today, and therefore spun much faster—at 60 turns per minute, compared to the mere 10 turns per minute of today’s blades. The smaller, faster blades created problems not only for people in the area of the windmill, but also for migratory birds, in whose direct path the Altamont windmill was erected. Today, wildlife habitats and migratory patterns are carefully studied during the siting of wind energy farms.
In New York, wind energy is now being made available by Community Energy, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based company started in Colorado in the mid-1990s by a group of people whose mission is to protect the environment, create energy-efficient programs, and develop clean, abundant, renewable forms of energy. Having made its debut Colorado wind farm the most successful one in the country, Community Energy came northeast in December 1999 with the installation of a relatively small, nine-megawatt (nine million watts) wind farm outside Pittsburgh. When the turbines’ 100-kilowatt blocks of energy output sold out, the company immediately installed a 15-megawatt wind farm, which also sold out quickly. The program attracted not only environmentally-minded residents and businesses, but well-known institutions, including Carnegie-Melon University (the first institution to purchase the output of an entire 1.5-megawatt turbine), Pennsylvania State University, which bought out three windmills, and the University of Pennsylvania, which purchased five. Community Energy is now in the process of developing a 70-megawatt wind farm near Scranton, and has 27 more Pennsylvania institutions already interested in investing in it.

“Electrons produced by wind energy are just like any other electrons,” Ron Kamen, New York State director of Community Energy, explained. “The only difference is where they come from. They’re not produced by oil, or coal, or fossil fuels, or nuclear—they’re made from the wind blowing. Wind energy is produced by huge windmills which work just like any other electricity producer—they put electrons into the grid. But unlike nuclear or coal or oil, it’s perfectly safe, there are no emissions, it’s abundant and doesn’t deplete resources, and it’s renewable.” With national asthma rates up to one in every 13 children affected, as Kamen pointed out, wind energy’s purity, so to speak, is nothing to sneeze at.
As a product, New Wind Energy (its name is a registered trademark) has been certified by Green-E, a national nonprofit environmental auditing organization (www.green-e.org). Each person or group that purchases blocks of energy, or the entire output of a turbine, receives a certificate stating authenticity, equality of shares, the output of the purchased wind turbine, and ownership of associated environmental rights. “It’s proof that all the shares are totally equal and that we’re not selling the same shares to other people,” Kamen said. “It’s also a legal document entitling you to these environmental attributes: no carbon dioxide, no sulfur, no acid rain, no noxious smog.”

A longtime energy consultant and the founder of the Binghamton-based Starphire New Energy Technologies, Kamen has helped procure $1 million of performance-based funding from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) to fund Community Energy’s campaign to publicize New Wind Energy and build a demand for it throughout the state. So far, the company is marketing 30 megawatts of new wind energy from an upstate wind farm in Madison County. Kamen said that there are 200 more megawatts worth of windmill installations in the works, and NYSERDA studies have shown that New York has the potential to support the installment of at least 5,000 megawatts of wind energy production.

Compared to “regular electricity”—in other words, the kind we’re billed for using in our households and businesses—wind-produced electricity is still slightly more expensive, Kamen conceded, even though he has watched its prices falling rapidly as wind technology develops and becomes more popular. However, he said, it’s still much cheaper and easier to install than its main alternative competitor: solar energy.
“Solar is good as an alternative, but it’s more expensive and complicated,” Kamen said. “You need to install panels on your home or business, it costs thousands of dollars to put up, and you need to have an electrician handle the connections. But with this new program from Community Energy, anyone can do wind, quickly and relatively inexpensively.”

Kamen said that the people who switch to 100 percent wind energy are finding that they are also receiving community support and lots of publicity. He cites the White Dog Café in Philadelphia as one example. That business, which was paying $50,000 a year to the local electric company before changing to wind energy, has opted to pay an additional $7,000 per year to become 100 percent wind-powered. Not only have customers responded very positively to the move, but the White Dog received major news attention from Philadelphia’s three area television stations—publicity that was worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Thanks to funding from NYSERDA, Kamen pointed out, Community Energy can also create similar publicity campaigns for businesses or other institutions that purchase 100 percent wind energy or else buy the output of a turbine.

The best places for wind turbines to be installed are wherever the wind naturally blows strongest—on mountains and along fast-running water, especially the ocean. However, the final determination for the siting of wind power comes from the people who will be living closest to its source. “We’ll only put the turbines up where the resources are good and where people really want them and ask for them,” Kamen said. “We wouldn’t try to put them where people don’t want them…Honestly, if people wanted them here, sure, the Catskills or the Hudson would be great, but we already know that people in the Hudson Valley are traditionally against wind turbines because they feel it changes the landscape.”

Ultimately, the most appropriate and desired locations for wind turbines to be erected have turned out to be on the family farm, according to Kamen. “Farmers can lease a couple of acres to us for a windmill and make income from that,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of the land is still farmable. It’s great for family farms, helping keep them going.”
If there are any drawbacks to New Wind Energy, Kamen can think of only one: the enormous size of the windmills. Since turbines tend to be huge, towering structures—the 1.5-megawatt models erected so far in Madison County each measure 250 feet tall, outstripping cell phone towers—they do, in the parlance of sustainability and smart growth advocates, have a “significant impact on the viewshed,” no doubt about it. Their 100-feet-long blades create “an area swept that’s more than the size of a football field,” according to Kamen. Yet, surprisingly, they make very little noise. And, Kamen says, while some people don’t like the site of the wind turbines, many others find “their sleek design a work of modern kinetic art.”

“Look at the alternatives,” he said. “You can have some tall, slim, slowly turning wind mills helping support family farms and creating clean electricity, or you can have coal-burning power plants continuing to spew acid rain and destroy the Adirondacks; Indian Point nuclear power plant threatening the lives of 9 million people and creating 10,000 years of hazardous waste; other fossil fuel plants polluting the air and giving our kids asthma and other respiratory illnesses; or our dependence on foreign oil continuing to create the conditions for additional terrorism. Wind energy now provides an inexpensive way to reduce pollution, create a healthier future for our kids, and move our country toward true energy independence.”

Individual households and businesses can switch over in part or entirely to wind power by visiting Community Energy’s Web site or calling a toll-free number to sign up to purchase wind energy in 100-kilowatt-hour blocks priced at $2.50 per share, with a minimum purchase of 200 kilowatt hours at $5, to be billed separately, in addition to their regular monthly electricity bill. However, thanks to the beneficial impacts even just a $5 purchase has on the environment, it’s “a small premium to pay,” Kamen said; plus, the more people who sign up, the bigger the impact, and the faster New York moves toward operating on green energy. By buying $5 worth of wind energy each month, a participant can put the equivalent of 40 percent of the average resident’s energy usage into the grid, Kamen explained; a $12.50 monthly purchase covers 100 percent.

Once you sign up to buy blocks of wind energy online or over the phone from Community Energy, you will be issued a monthly bill for the purchasing amount. Niagara Mohawk (NIMO) and New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) customers can opt to buy wind energy by filling out a form enclosed with their bills. For NIMO customers, the purchasing price will be added automatically into their monthly statements. NYSEG customers will receive a separate bill. Customers of other utilities (such as O&R, ConEd, or Central Hudson) will receive separate bills directly from Community Energy.

Group purchases are also welcome. If 1,800 people get together to make a minimum $5 purchase each, or 600 people spend $15 each, Kamen explained, they can buy the output of one turbine. The company is planning to promote this idea among institutions and environmental organizations throughout the state.

“When you buy blocks of wind energy, nothing really changes for you,” said Kamen. “You don’t change companies or have to get different wiring, and unless you have NIMO or NYSEG, your bill will look exactly the same. You won’t see the results directly, but you’ll know that you’re getting clean energy into the grid, and supporting a greener New York state by pushing out some of the bad stuff.”

Purchasing just one block of wind power in New York, Kamen claims, reduces 1,853 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, the main source of global climate change. “This is the equivalent to planting 126 trees per year!” he said. “One new wind turbine annually removes more than six million pounds of CO2 and also reduces 30,000 pounds of SO2 (the main source of acid rain) and 12,000 pounds of NO2 (smog).”
In an ideal world, Kamen said, if enough people support New Wind Energy, polluting power plants and nuclear energy could be eliminated entirely. NYSERDA’s Energy Fast Facts Web page shows that 24 percent of the state’s electricity is generated by nuclear power. According to Dan Rosenblum, Pace University’s energy expert, Indian Point nuclear power plant’s capacity is 1,950 megawatts, “but that depends on how much time it’s actually running, and when it’s actually working, if you get my meaning.”

If enough people participated in buying wind energy, Kamen said, it’s entirely possible that Indian Point could be made obsolete—no small thing in the midst of the war on terrorism.

“What makes it all work is the desire to make things greener and safer,” Kamen said. “A lot of people look at the state of the world, at the pollution and at the vulnerability of nuclear plants, and they want to do something about it, but they don’t know what they can do. Here’s something to do toward using a renewable source of energy and becoming energy efficient, pollution free, fuel-resource free, and, in the end, energy independent.”