[SustainableTompkins] Who Owns Wind Power in America

[Joel and Sarah Gagnon]

Wither wind energy in New York? A very interesting question you raise, 
Simon. I read your thoughts and found them provocative. Here are mine.

I think it is useful to think of wind as a natural resource, as you do, but 
it is a resource akin to land, rather than the depletable resources like 
coal or gas. Like land, wind is a distributed resource, making it 
impossible to exploit with large centralized facilities. That doesn't mean 
that there isn't an economy of scale. The best quality wind is at higher 
altitudes, making tall turbines (read expensive) the most efficient way to 
harvest the resource. That fact alone is enough to drive the investment in 
the direction of investors with deep pockets to organize the efforts and 
win approval. Given how easy it is to thwart small-scale efforts with 
limited financial backing, it is not surprising that the development is 
driven by utilities.

Since the resource is land-associated, it will tend to be seen as an asset 
connected to the land. Control of the asset depends on controlling the 
land. Of course, controlling the land does not suffice, since land use 
controls give the government and those controlling it a say. We can 
influence how the resource is tapped, and who gets to do it.

Given the imperative to rapidly ramp up our alternative energy production, 
and given wind's compelling advantage in being already competitive with new 
coal plants at today's price of coal, we should make a real effort to 
rapidly come to agreement about how best to expedite use of this resource. 
I can easily imagine big money rapidly gobbling up the best sites. There is 
money to be made, and the world needs the investment.

I can also imagine at least regional cooperative wind energy development, 
perhaps with government playing an enabling role in a public-private 
partnership, or with completely municipally-owned systems as exists for 
electricity distribution in Groton.

Rather than argue about whether we should use wind (arguably our best 
available alternative energy technology), I think we should focus on how it 
gets used and who profits. We are already exporting our capital to our 
energy suppliers with our dependence on oil. It would be a sad outcome if 
we position ourselves to continue doing so after we switch to renewable 
energy sources because foreigners were the ones to seize the opportunities 
to exploit our resource and then profit by selling the harvested energy 
back to us. While we can tax the production, it would be much better to 
keep more of the money local. Can we organize a county wind utility?

One further thought: why not treat wind the same way we treat underlying 
gas deposits? Those who want to tap the resource would need to get control 
of the right to use the wind within a "production unit". A certain minimum 
percentage of the wind rights would have to be accumulated to gain 
approval, and the benefits of production in the form of royalties could be 
paid  to all properties within the production unit. That way, all those 
most impacted would benefit from the harvesting of the resource. It might 
go a long way toward reducing opposition.

Joel

At 07:59 AM 2/29/08 -0500, you wrote:
>John Miller wrote:
> > Simon,
> > Excerpt from your living in Dryden wind article:
> >
> > Finally, I think I figured out and wrote up why
> > <http://simonstl.com/random/2008/02/wind-power-as-extractive-indus.html>
> > I'm not automatically a supporter of large-scale wind. Mostly it comes
> > down to the basic problem of not trusting the people who want to build
> > these, and realizing that the consequences aren't all bright
> >
> > Check out Empire State Wind Energy- org Tom Golisano (billionare-
> > founder of PayChecx, a payroll and human resource services solutions
> > company from which he departed Oct 1, 2004)- from Rochester who ran for
> > Governor)
>
>Now you're asking me if I trust Tom Golisano, and that's another
>complicated question, though they do seem willing to put it in writing.
>
>This sounds better than a lot of wind power options - but that doesn't
>mean we should pass laws supporting wind power that assume developers
>are all going to live up to Golisano's promises.  They aren't, even if
>he might.  I'm also not sure how/whether it would be legal to endorse
>development on his terms while barring developers with less attractive
>notions of their role in the community.
>
>So yes, very cool - but an answer that solves part of the question.  (I
>also wonder what other wind developers think of this approach, and its
>impact on their cash return on investment.  It's nice to think this
>could be a model, but then I think about the energy business, and
>suspect the consensus answer would be 'no'.)
>
>Thanks,
>Simon St.Laurent
>http://livingindryden.org/
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