The Courage to Change

1,030 Billion kWhs: South Dakota's Wind Fields is your handbook to successful wind farming. 1,030 Billion was developed to spur wide-spread "aericulture" as a companion to traditional agriculture practices. The handbook will be available in print (134 pages, 4.25" x 5.5") on 3 November to farmers, ranchers, ag-business operators, and rural communities. (The table of contents was posted in this blog on October 10.)

In addition to ten steps to wind farming, the handbook has web addresses at the end of each Step that complement the content in the step.

Before we can profit from- rather than curse- every windy day, we have to develop wind with as much desire as we raise crops and livestock.


In The Wall Street Journal, 15 October, p. A1, is "Northern Vintage: Canadian Wines Rise with the Mercury," Gary Kennedy, a farmer in Tappen, British Columbia, told TWSJ "We've literally bet the farm that this is going to work," said . He sold his dairy cows to raise Pinot Noir grapes on his farm.

The borders of the world's grape-growing regions are shifting north, as global warming encourages vintners to press even futher north. At Mr. Kennedy's winery- Granite Creek- a heavy snowfall in the mountains meant a possible early frost when the grapes needed another two weeks of sun for the best harvest.

Mr. Kennedy spent two years studying the region's climate data after learning his children didn't want to continue operating his dairy farm. Once he was confident about his business change, he sold the livestock and took out a hefty loan to start Granite Creek.

[South Dakotans have a similar choice to make in the face of climate change and the growth of marginal ag land. Wind farming, like deciding to raise grapes, also requires "doing your homework," with the understanding that electricity consumption continues to grow nation-wide. In SD alone, consumption by a typical household has increased from an average of 780 kWhs per month to 900 kWhs of electricity.

266 lbs. of coal had to be burned each month to generate 780 kWhs of electricity. Now we burn 307 lbs. coal each month to generate 900 kWhs. That's pounds more of ash settling on our lakes and land, and more mercury and radioactive cadmium in our wildlife.]


In the 19 October issue of The Wall Street Journal, on p.A13, "Builders get energy goals in California," the California PUC and the California Energy Commission proposed energy efficiency improvements for new homes and buildings. The report highlighted

--homes are to be capable, by 2020, of generating as much energy as they consume; new buildings are to meet the same standard by 2035

--new homes are to be 35% more energy efficient by 2020 than now; buildings are to be 35 more energy efficient by 2035 than now

--with these new standards, the two agencies may be establishing a foundation for community-, subdivision-, and commercial-level energy self-sufficiency.

--utilities are required to develop proposals to motivate builders to voluntarily meet the goals.

--achieving the goals could save California consumers $10 billion in energy costs and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equivalent to taking 1.8 million cars off the road.

[In addition to fossil fuel or biofuel-fired micro steam turbines, mid-size to sub-1 megawatt wind turbines may play important roles in helping to achieve better energy efficiencies. Community- or subdivision-level generation will also help the state achieve its Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) goal.

California, Minnesota, and other states are taking steps to reduce the impacts of burning fossil fuels; South Dakota wind farmers can deliver the "green" power they want in their RPSs.]

The Watertown (SD) Public Opinion, 19 Oct., p. 10B; "Farmer [turns to] wind energy," the report observed "squeezed by higher energy prices and more overhead costs, some small farms are exploring ways to increase their energy efficiency and lower costs. These efforts by small farms are becoming more common."

[Farm energy production methods such as wind turbines and biodiesel production were mentioned along with looking into energy effieciency. Solar panel use and biomass converstion were not discussed.]

A disappointing report on environmental activism was provided by the Farm Forum Green Sheet, 12 - 17 Oct., p. 74F. "Ill winds for Montana wind power project" highlighted

--two years of discussing and marketing didn't sway environmental groups opposed to the original 500 MW wind development

--political will, tax breaks, and good to excellent wind were not persuasive

--in an unsuccessful attempt to appease the groups, the project was cut from 500 MW to 170 to 50 MW. Completion of the minimalized wind farm is in doubt.

U.S. Jon Tester (D-MT) offered a realistic appraisal of wind development: "We need to figure out a way to make these [wind power] projects work. Or we all start riding bicycles."

[Environmentalists want the luxuries of modern life- electric lights, central heating/cooling, refrigerators, cars to take them dozens (if not hundreds) of miles to their next rabble-rousing-while preventing power generating projects that sustain modern life with the least negative impact on the environment.

Such environmentalists have not fully thought through how society changes to meet needs and the pace at which people change. Environmentalists have become as rigid as ultra-conservatives; both hinder rather than help their causes.]

Suggestion to Fox Business Network; Wind development service

If Roger Ailes, Kevin Magee, and Fox Business Network intend to "broaden the pie that watches business news," they will address wind farm development and other renewable energy developments that generate electricity which can be purchased for meeting Renewables Portfolio Standards mandates around the country.

FBN will package electricity rate data in different metro areas of the U.S. with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 24-hour wind speed measurements (such as here, and here) on wind farm lands. Energy brokers and power company managers as well as wind farm operators and investers can make smart buying decisions based on "green power news" that can limit climate change, reduce electricity rates, and achieve energy self-reliance.

For example-
North Dakota (wind resource map) is the most-windy state
Texas (wind resource map) is the second most-windy state
Kansas (wind resource map) is the third most-windy state
South Dakota (wind resource map) is the fourth most-windy state and
Montana (wind resource map) is the fifth most-windy state.
(Here is a list of windy states was developed by the American Wind Energy Association.

Electricity rates, wind speed (which influences transmission line electricity-carrying capacity), and federal "clean energy" legislation (presently more than 1,000 Bills) are part of the "green power" environment.

Just as in offices and businesses everywhere, "information overload" is status quo as well for farmers, ranchers, and rural community leaders. Members of Congress have the Library of Congress and the Congressional Research Service to call upon when they have questions during decision-making.

Farmers, ranchers, and rural community residents would benefit from a Farm Energy Production Service/Library that would be modeled on the CRS and the National Agricultural Library. By slashing farm energy production, marketing, and management "information orverload," America's agriculture professionals will be best equipped to product power as efficiently as they now produce foods and fibers.

A portion of disaster relief funds could be earmarked in an "if, then" situation for various forms of farm energy development. Wind power, solar power, and waste vegetable oil to biodiesel production equipment purchases with the funds would lead to four important results-

1) financial aid to farmers, ranchers, and other agri-business operators during critical times
2) invigorate farm energy production as "perennial crops" when seasonal crops and livestock are stilted by weather or diseases
3) establish and maintain farm energy production to rival the "world's bread basket" as America's "energy basket" and
4) spur local innovations by citizens and students that inevitably lead to intense learning, business startups, job opportunities, and retention of young people.

All of the states' Rural Electric Co-ops, partnering with farmers, ranchers, and other operators, can use relief funds to upgrade transmission line capacity, capacity that will benefit all farm energy producers.

Food for thought and action?

A South Dakota wind farming handbook

Now in Microsoft Publisher is 1,030 billion kWhs of wind power- A Farm Energy Production Handbook, First Edition; booklet format, 134 pages. Being printed for in-state sale.

The Table of Contents (Web addresses follow, or are in, every Step) is

Section 9006 details (2002 "Farm Bill" Section 9006 is Title IX- Energy) on page NS-1
Step 1 (know the wind quality at your site(s) ) on page 1-1
Step 2 (know the “lay of the land” ) on page 2-1
Step 3 (understanding wind economics ("aerinomics" in the handbook)) on page 3-1
Step 4 (finding electricity purchasers ) on page 4-1
Step 5 (know the transmission infrastructure) on page 5-1
Step 6 (ensure heavy equipment) on page 6-1
Step 7 (know about manufacturers of turbines) on page 7-1
Step 8 (learn about operation and maintenance (O&M) contracts) on page 8-1
Step 9 (understand the time-lines of regulatory and other constraints) on page 9-1
Step 10 (developing a great business plan) on page 10-1
Appendix (hilltop Wyoming gasoline station started my "wind chasing") on page A-1

As the South Dakota wind wind resource map (a computer estimate) shows, nearly all South Dakotans and their communities can be wind farmers. Gold areas are where wind farming (aericulture- cultivating the wind) becomes economically viable. (Some of those same areas are marginal for agriculture.) The remaining colors are increasingly high-yield areas.

The market for wind power continues to grow rapidly, as suggested in yesterday's (9 Oct Tuesday) The Wall Street Journal report on page A7 that may serve as a springboard for widespread SD wind farming. (By-the-way, here in Watertown we enjoyed 11 hours of 16 - 21 mph wind having 600 - 800 W/sq. meter of swept area per hour at 50 meters (purple/red on the map.)

"Big Firms to Press Suppliers on Climate" describes the efforts by Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, and other companies to reduce the emission of CO2 and other GHG throughout their respective supply chains.

The report observes- Companies are increasingly touting their environmental strategies as a marketing tool because consumers are more aware of and concerned about climate change. One of those strategies is the Supply Chain Leadership Coalition; the companies are working with the Carbon Disclosure Project (London) to spur suppliers' improvements in energy efficiency and
reducing CO2/GHG emissions. ["Carrot and stick" arrangement, undoubtedly.]

[South Dakota land owners and communities can build wind farms using sub-one MW turbines for fastest installation and proven reliability to contract with the Supply Chain Leadership
Coalition and its suppliers for wind power and "green credits." Our wind farms are a long-term (100-year) response to a business demand; the Coalition and their supply chains could be the leverage we need to secure funds for buying the turbines and for construction of the farms and transmission lines. "Big Firms" justify a "Giant Vision," don't you agree?]

Food for action.

Cut-in (conclusion)

The prior installation of Cut-in left me leaving the Wyoming hill-top gas station thinking Willie Nelson's “on the road again.”

Into South Dakota a few hours and still no “What to do?” answer. Fine. I'd rather drive in peace and quiet. Plains and utility poles, poles and plains; the miles passed.

Somewhere between Rapid City and Pierre: “Windmills.”
“What? What do you mean 'windmills?'”
“In all this wind, use windmills,” was the reply.
“To do what, pump water?” (The nag said no more and was going to make me figure it out.)

After mulling for the subsequent 23 miles, I “saw” a wind turbine paired with every utility pole, generating electricity and using the existing wires to carry the power to where it was needed. The “Big Picture” gelled during the remaining miles to Watertown.

Manufacture the machines for installation throughout the state, perhaps as a “state concrete plant-like” organization.
Transportation, installation, maintenance, and repair all can be done by South Dakotans.
(Wind farming isn't “rocket science;” its been done world-wide. Transmission might be a problem. Hmmmm. Shouldn't be a "show-stopper.")

From that point it was a matter of going to the Watertown Regional Library for a couple of hours every day after the "day job" (with a few weeks at the Lake Area Technical Institute library) to learn “what to do.” Now I have to act to achieve the "Big Picture."

Cut-in (installation)

Cut-in describes what spurred me to edit this handbook on harvesting some of the 1,030 billion kWhs of wind power South Dakota enjoys (but not all South Dakotans) each year. With electricity and water rates going up here in Watertown, we should have 5 megawatts of windfarming to counter-balance those increases. (I can be "the squeaky wheel" so locals will act.)

All through grade and high schools in Watertown, I disliked the wind; it made riding a bike into town work during summers and numbed fingers during winters. Those memories and dozens of others resurfaced as I drove from Des Moines, Washington to Watertown that howling August day. The gas gauge was close to “Empty” as I exited I-90 near the Wyoming-South Dakota border to fill the tank.

“What an odd place for a gas station,” I grumbled as the winding secondary road led up to a broad, flat hilltop where the pumps were, along with a heavy-truck repair depot and a restaurant.

My mood was further soured by having to struggle to open the car door against that “God-forsaken wind” (a long-unused, but not forgotten phrase). It almost made me forget about the $3.10 per gallon gas I was burning- almost.

Gasoline prices mushroomed into crude oil prices which mushroomed into energy. Costs are a problem; problems mean opportunities for earning money; and other random thoughts bounced around in my head as the gasoline/money flowed. What can I do here, in this situation? Pieces of paper flew, clumps of tall grass were bent nearly flat, a stop sign jiggled, and my partially-open jacket billowed and strained at the zipper. Energy was all around me, “as plain as day,” but still untappable in my “forsaken” mind-set.

“Oh crap! Thirty-four dollars!” my penny-pincher screamed, jerking me back to the here-and- (painfully expensive) now. As I “swam” through the gusts in to pay, “What can I do?” continued to nag, as troublesome as a slow fly in mid-September. Of course returning to the car was a case of being hurled, one stride becoming 2 and a-half, clutching for the door handle like grab-bing a handrail during a stumble.

Safely at the door, once again I fussed with the door, stewing “What can be done with this shtuff?!” Still no answer (apparently it's easier to nag than to solve, I mocked.) Returning to I-90, the view from the hilltop was exquisite: lower hills softened by golden grass, purplish valleys, and a few puffy clouds overhead. I continued to gawk at it all, eventually finding the interstate ingress (I've always wanted to use that word instead of “entrance.”) without taking too many “scenic routes,” and was, as Willy Nelson might say, “on the road again.”

[Continued in next post.]

See current wind speed and direction at the Watertown Municipal Airport.

10 Steps to Successful Wind Farming- Step 1

The first two paragraphs of the 11 pages in Step 1 are

Know the wind quality at your site(s)
Cost-effective development of wind power for electricity generation occurs in areas rated Class 3 (gold) or higher. Because long-term meteorological tower measurements often indicate significantly greater- as much as one class or more- wind energy potential than the map shows, it is “money in your pocket” when you know the wind.

Wind energy density classes are color-coded on this NREL map of the South Dakota Wind Resource.

“Know your wind.” What exactly does that mean? In order to earn money by harvesting some of the 1,030 billion kWhs of power from the wind blowing through our state every year, you need to know the qualities of the wind at your site(s). Soil qualities such as moisture, pH, nitrogen, percentages of sand and/or clay determine potential crop yield; wind qualities are similar indicators of potential yield.

10 Steps to Successful Wind Farming "fleshes out" wind farming in a handbook on farm energy production I am editing. The paper version of the handbook will cost $5.95; a Microsoft Publisher file will be available for $8.95; an online version with more links than "you can shake a stick at" will be available by subscription. The link to the SD Wind Resource Map is one link in the online version; another example is "If you want to make wind variability visible, draw a “wind rose.”

Looking at the map tells us that nearly every South Dakotan can harvest and sell wind power and "green credits" to buyers nationwide. The handbook will be a starting point for action by individuals, groups, businesses, and communities, action that means profiting from every windy day.

Farm energy production will "soften" coal

Lagerwey is developing a permanent magnet drive 100kW wind turbine. If the design is efficient and robust, every rural community on the Upper Great and Great Plains could install one or more to reduce the bite of increasing electricity rates and provide power to ethanol plants. Electricity is quality of life; rural Americans can act to improve "QoL."

A “Letter to the Editor” in The Wall Street Journal (13 August) spurred me to read the 25 June report the letter referenced in the context of HR 2154 (“Rural Energy”). America's “fossil-fuel addiction” will lead to diversifying ag incomes and wide-spread rural development through energy production. Or we will “twiddle our thumbs” until our quality of life “goes to hell in a hand-basket.” One or the other- our choice.

In enacting HR 2154- Rural Energy for America Act of 2007- the Congress found that--

(1) rising energy costs and uncertain long-term energy supplies threaten to undermine the growth of the United States economy;

(2) since 2003, fuel and fertilizer costs have nearly doubled for agricultural producers;

(3) there are continuing and increasing risks to the energy security of the United States;

(4) having an affordable, reliable, and plentiful energy supply will strengthen the United States economy and improve domestic energy security;

(5) the agricultural sector can provide a significant source of clean, sustainable energy for the United States that can reduce the dependence of the United States on imported energy and lower energy costs for all people of the United States;

(6) agriculture-based energy--

(A) boosts rural economic development

(B) increases farm-based income

(C) creates manufacturing, construction, and service jobs

(D) expands economic opportunity for all people and

(E) improves environmental quality.

A little more than one month later, on 25 July, 2007, “New Power Plants Fueled by Coal Are Put on Hold” was published by The Wall Street Journal. Rebecca Smith reported, on pages A1 and A10

--from coast to coast, plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants are falling by the wayside as states conclude that conventional coal plants are too dirty to build and the cost of cleaner plants too high.


[agriculture-based energy- wind and solar power and biofuels- in contrast, are another aspect of the stewardship successfully practiced by American farmers, ranchers, and other operators]

--if significant numbers of new coal plants don't get built in the U.S. in coming years, it will put pressure on officials to

--clear the path for other power sources, including nuclear power or

--trim the nation's electricity demand, so far this year growing at a brisk 2.7% annualarized rate.

[more than 60 clean energy-related bills are in-work for the 110th Congress, many of them involving the agriculture industry in one way or another]

-- ... long-term consequences of not building the plants ... higher prices or the potential for shortages.


[a focused effort to harvest some of the more than three thousand billion kWhs of wind power that blows through the Upper Great Plains states each year can be a means to avoiding those consequences]

--by May 2007, 150 new plants were planned for construction alongside the 645 existing U.S. plants

--coal was expected to reduce the use of natural gas, even though coal emits twice as much carbon dioxide when burned as does NG

page A10

--nearly two dozen coal projects have been cancelled since early 2006 [source: National Energy Technology Laboratory]

--on 18 July, Citibank commented: “prophesies of a new wave of coal-fired generation have vaporized.“

--climate change has become a hot-button political issue

--China is expected to become a net importer of coal this year. Sales to China may substitute for [reduced] U.S. purchases.

--new nuke plants are several years away [and themselves face intense resistance from a number of groups]

--wind and solar power [aren't "always on at the flip of a switch"]


[what agriculture-based energy production lacks- for the time being- in efficiency compared to traditional power plants, it would make up for when millions of acres of agriculture land concurrently produce energy]

[agriculture-based energy production on the Upper Great Plains states co-exists with nearly all agriculture operations and other organizations. While many ag operations are seasonal, energy productions are perennial]


--if coal stumbles, natural gas is “the bridge fuel.” But other industries are increasing their use of NG as a fuel or raw material [such as for fertilizer, raising the specter of importing more foreign NG, in addition to oil].

--sudden and forceful changes to the nature of the power industry have arisen because of environmental concerns and the costs associated with eradicating them


[wind and solar power production use no fossil fuels, so no emissions. Biofuels may or may not emit fewer pollutants than fossil fuels; it depends on who is measuring and what is being measured. One agriculture-based energy production method- anaerobic digestion- converts animal wastes into hydrogen and other products.]

--Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is not in favor of Xcel Energy buying coal gas from Excelsior Energy largely because a $635.4 million pipeline for carrying carbon dioxide would have to be built

--Xcel in Colorado is buying 775 MW of wind power to offset the carbon dioxide emitted by a 750 MW coal-fired plant

--Peabody Energy and ConocoPhillips may build a coal gasification plant; claims its coal gas [$5 – $6 per trillion cubic feet] may be price-competitive with natural gas [$2 – $3 per trillion cubic feet]. [What assumptions allow this?]


[weighing all of the pros and cons, from environmental to manufacturing job creation to local economic development, wind power today is price-competitive with coal- and nuclear-fired power plants].

Several high-wind hours on Aug 15 here in Watertown: SE at 8 mph; also had a couple of hours of Calm (less than 5 mph).

'Til next time, Best Wind.