Terry Graff: Community-owned Wind Power

Wrong

To the Editor:

T. Boone Pickens has it wrong. He has it wrong for two reasons.
Energy solutions must be viewed in the very long term and must consider the greenhouse gas issue.
This means that more oil, coal, or propane use is not a long-term goal or solution. No proposal of a solution involving burning anything can be seriously considered. Energy sources from combustion can only be viewed as stopgap measures on our way to elimination them to the greatest extent possible.
We don’t need to wean ourselves off foreign oil; we need to wean ourselves off combustibles of any form.
As a practical matter, energy solutions should not include methods that produce toxic waste for which we have no viable form of disposal and which creates possible problems from potential terrorist acts.
What is then left in the mix includes wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and any other energy source that technology can provide. Of these, the two most easily accessible are wind and solar power. We need extreme development of wind-generated energy. Improvements in wind generation technology could help us redevelop our manufacturing base and improve the export end of our current trade imbalance.
This brings up the second flaw in Mr. Pickens’ approach. His corporate paradigm postulates that a centralized source of energy should be owned by for-profit corporations which rake in the profits. It also calls for massive development of a huge transmission line infrastructure.
In reality, we need a windmill in Kindred, in Sabin, Hawley, Casselton, etc. They should be owned by the municipality, which would allow for much lower energy costs in the future, once the investment costs are paid. After all, wind is cheap.
This approach not only eliminates the need for massive transmission line infrastructure, but also eliminates the massed groupings of windmills that threaten migratory birds.
Further, the power sources are less vulnerable to terroristic problems because they are so dispersed, rather than being one large facility which is easily hit.
We need to eliminate both the use of combustibles and the corporate paradigms when solving our energy problems. Instead of government assistance to oil companies, provide it to municipalities to develop diverse and dispersed means of producing energy that don’t rely on combustion.

-Terry Graff
Sabin, Minn.