Community Wind Strategies for Montana
Peggy Beltrone: Eight winters ago, I boarded a bus to Pincher Creek, Alberta, climbed a mountain and stomped around my first wind farm. For me, the stars aligned. My passion for environmental protection, national security, and rural economic development suddenly found a focus. As a Cascade County Commissioner, I soon took up the mantle of bringing wind power development to the gusty east slopes of the Continental Divide.
Eight winters ago, I boarded a bus to Pincher Creek, Alberta, climbed a
mountain and stomped around my first wind farm. For me, the stars
aligned. My passion for environmental protection, national security,
and rural economic development suddenly found a focus. As a Cascade
County Commissioner, I soon took up the mantle of bringing wind power
development to the gusty east slopes of the Continental Divide.
Today, America’s wind power capacity is ten times what it was in 2001.
The Department of Energy believes that by the year 2030, wind power can
provide 20% of our country’s electricity supply. But for wind energy to
shoulder its full promise to drastically reduce our reliance on fossil
fuels, it needs a boost.
Fortunately, a boost is on its way. with President Obama’s American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will bolster clean electricity
generation, build transmission pathways, train workers, advance new
technologies and help local governments buy and build renewable energy.
For Montana, especially rural Montana, the question is how to use these
new tools to break out of our traditional role as an extracted and
overlooked part of the country.
Take transmission as an example. Among wind advocates, there is welcome
talk of a superhighway-like system to carry wind from rural areas to
load centers in big cities. But I’m hearing fears that our rural
economies will be stranded. “Our money” will be gobbled up by big-city
utilities. The skepticism is understandable. But Rural America must put
away the slingshot, stop playing David to the Goliaths of the world and
help find a win-win solution for the good of all our wind-rich
communities.
Join me in the weeds for a few minutes. I want to share my story of the
215-mile “green” transmission line proposed between Great Falls and
Lethbridge, Alberta. The Montana-Alberta Tie line is new ground, a
venture capital or “merchant” transmission project designed to carry
600 megawatts of new wind power and create $1 billion in economic
impact for one of the neediest areas of the country. It should have
been a slam-dunk: huge benefits to our rural economy, green energy
development, bi-partisan political support, Mom, a billion dollars, and
Apple Pie. But everyone was learning – from the company and their
lawyers and land agents to the landowners, regulators and community
advocates. We had to dust off a 30-year-old process, a 30-year-old
compensation model and a 30-year-old regulatory structure, and had to
forge entirely new ways to overcome doubt and suspicion. After more
than four years, we’re close to final approval, but getting to this
point took hard work. And at just two hundred miles, the MATL line is a
fraction of what needs to be built nationwide.
Our nation needs a “Super Grid” to carry hundreds of gigawatts of
electricity from expansive wind farms to our teeming cities and to
prevent gigatons of greenhouse gases from entering our atmosphere. We
need it so America can stop importing billions of barrels of oil from
hostile nations. But we shouldn’t bet the farm on just one strategy.
Our communities should be able to enjoy the benefits of green power
provided by locally owned and scaled wind power projects. Montanans
should have the chance to build turbine components, not just assemble
parts shipped in from elsewhere. We must fight for new research dollars
to be directed to the almost non-existent community-sized turbine
sector. If we play our cards right, we can use the wind movement to
create jobs, lower power bills, gain energy independence, preserve our
clean air, curb the out-migration of our kids, and perhaps even regain
a sense of community.
The opportunities are out there. We can manufacture and install the
components for today’s large-scale wind projects and we can design and
build the turbines of the future. The research to develop tomorrow’s
wind technologies has already begun in Montana – for example, with a
Governor Schweitzer-inspired collaboration between Cascade County,
Northwestern Energy, two national laboratories, and Helena’s own Exergy
Development Group. Together these partners are preparing to test a
Vanadium Redox Battery at Cascade County’s 50 kilowatt wind generator.
We’re confident that this pilot project can significantly advance this
important wind power-storing battery technology, and be a gateway to
larger projects.
If Montana wants to compete in wind power markets, we need to
coordinate efforts like Cascade County’s Vanadium Battery test on a far
larger scale. We need to unite the researchers in our universities, the
enthusiasm of our students, the expertise of our engineering
professionals, the manufacturing skills of our workforce, the
innovative thinking of our entrepreneurs, and the cheerleading of our
business and community leaders. If we succeed, we will move beyond our
Copper King heritage and become a region with an unrivaled base of
knowledge and support for designing and manufacturing advanced wind
technologies for our country and the world.
We already have a start. Cascade County, TechRanch of Bozeman, Montana
Universities, and Exergy Development Group are teaming up on a
Department of Energy proposal to create this clean, green energy
technology economy in our state – to develop all variety of
technologies including turbines that blend better into our landscapes
and reduce interference to wildlife. And they will be built in Montana.
It’s exciting stuff – a far cry from what I thought was possible when I
took my first stroll through a Wind Farm.
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Peggy Beltrone - April 24, 2009
Cascade County Commissioner
