Wind Power In Wisconsin

In my home state of Wisconsin, myself and other Wisconsinites often find themselves on the higher scale of energy costs when compared to rest of the nation. With the growing support of its citizens, Wisconsin is taking baby steps towards reversing this trend. Not only will this lower electrical, and eventually, heating costs state wide, but pollution would decrease as coal plants are relied on for power less and less.

What would this mean for the state directly?

I’ll start with the power numbers first. In July of 2005, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved plans to increase, by as much as 4 times, the amount of power generated by wind farms. This increase is expected to power over 72,000 homes in Wisconsin, reducing emissions by the following numbers: 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide, 12 pounds of Mercury, 240 tons of nitrogen oxide and 340 tons of sulfur dioxide.

Those are pretty large numbers of reduced pollutants for any state. For a state like Wisconsin, though, that relies heavily on tourism and environmentally dependant activities for those tourists, it could mean all the difference of growth vs. economic hardships.

Now, for the bad news. Studies have suggested that, due to the cost of building and maintaining wind farms, the average person’s electric bill would actually increase. Not many within the state are trained to run and maintain such facilities. Also, in regards to the proposed Horicon project, concerns have been raised about the blades interfering with large number of birds in the area (Horicon Marsh in particular). Also, those living near these farms have noted the annoyance of the constant whirr of the blades moving through the air.

I do see a point with the concerns about the Horicon area, as well as the noise factor. As much as we need a cleaner, more readily available power source, we do not want to cause more harm than good. An alternate site in this case should be found. Trading air pollution for noise pollution isn’t exactly the best either.

However, I believe there are plenty of areas within the state that could be used for wind farming. How many land fills and toxic dumps do we have that are well out of the way of both nature and people? There are a lot more than you would think. By using these “unusable” areas of land, we can preserve our environments, habitats, and peoples quality of life.

Those that bring up the cost issue do have a point. Will Wisconsinites be willing to have a higher electric bill for cleaner power? Maybe we’ll ask them this after they spend $5 a week charging their electric cars vs. the $40 a week in gas they are paying now.

Here is the list of sites I used for my facts. Please feel free to interject any thoughts or opinions you may have. Please, as always, present the data supporting your statement and the source of this data. Any posts without such will be immediately removed. I am also working on getting the archives back up for everyone to view.

http://www.renewwisconsin.org/windfarm/ProposedWIWindfarmsJan_24_06.pdf

http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.cfm?Id=823&yr=2005

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=307934

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/es/science/energy/wind/