Windfall for Wisconsin

Turbines get different spins from advocates, detractor

By Dennis A. Shook

A wind turbine stands behind a barn at the Forward Energy Wind Farm near Byron. The average wind turbine is 260 feet high.

Doug Decker doesn’t understand what all the dust-up is about when it comes to wind turbines, but he realizes there have been stormy conflicts over the tall structures.

Decker could be considered one of the state’s experts on coexisting with turbines. He has lived beside two of them since 1999 and lets We Energies operate them on about 12 acres of his 95-acre farm along Highway 41 in Fond du Lac.

“It’s been a very good experience,” said Decker, who works as a mechanic for Alliant Energy, which also is developing wind turbines.

The 208-foot towers on his land are set back about 1,300 feet from buildings and about 600 feet from the road, he said. He farms up to just a few feet from the base of the turbines, growing soy beans, corn and alfalfa.

He disputes claims by wind turbine opponents in many Wisconsin communities that the structures cause bird deaths, consistently block sunlight and are noisy.

“We also have the nearby highway and trains to contend with, so the noise is not really a factor,” he said. “And as for the birds, it’s not like we have a pile of goose pâté below the towers. They know how to fly above or around them.

“And I can tell you there is no stray voltage because we have gopher holes right up to the base of the towers.”

A pick-up truck rolls by of a wind turbine under construction at the Forward Energy Wind Farm. A local detractor of turbine installation says the blades can be as wide as a 747 airplane is long.

Wind turbines have taken center stage in Wisconsin recently as at least one major project is coming on-line. We Energies is expected to have the 88 wind turbines of the Blue Skies, Green Fields wind farm in Marshfield fully operational by May, said utility spokesman Brian Manthey.

Michael Vickerman, executive director of Renew Wisconsin, an environmental group that supports wind turbines, predicts 195 more modern windmills will be in the state by the end of the year.

The gusto utilities show pursuing the renewable-energy source proves there is some green to be made in green-energy production.

The helicopter-looking structures will soon be sprouting up like dandelions across the state’s landscape, particularly around the windy region along the Niagara escarpment ridges in the state’s eastern Door Peninsula.

The state sweetened the deal for the utilities by exempting wind turbines from personal property taxes.

And Vickerman said there is one more financial benefit from developing the average 260-foot-tall structures: While it might not be a windfall, he said there are cost savings as a result of the need to produce less energy from coal and gas plants, along with federal incentives.

Besides savings and financial incentives, there are other reasons for the growth of wind turbines.

In March 2006, the state mandated 10 percent of Wisconsin’s overall energy production come from renewable sources of energy by 2015, with 25 percent expected by 2025.

Biomass sources, solar and hydroelectric also can provide renewable fuel, Manthey said, but he added that wind turbines will by far be the best source for years to come because of better existing technology.

Manthey said about 145 megawatts of the 210 megawatts of additional renewable capacity that We Energies is required to generate by 2010 will come for the Marshfield Blue Skies, Green Fields project.

Shot in a rural area of Byron, which is about 10 miles south of Fond du Lac, these four wind turbines are just the start for Wisconsin. Some local residents feel the towers are spreading like weeds rather than roses however.

Yet to meet its portion of the state wind turbine mandate, the utility will probably need to construct up to 450 wind turbines by 2015, said Andy Hesselbach, wind farm project manager for We Energies.

But the seemingly benign wind turbines do have their opponents. In fact, based on information gathered by Renew Wisconsin, the turbines are usually opposed by area residents. The group said only two of the 19 wind projects in Wisconsin during 2007 lacked local citizen opposition.

One of the most active opponents is Mike Winkler, whose longtime family home is near the Marshfield turbines. His novel, “Wind Power — It Blows,” is a fictional account of fighting wind turbine installations.

Winkler and his family sued the Town of Marshfield and We Energies in 2004 to stop the Blue Skies, Green Fields project. But a Fond du Lac circuit court ruled Winkler had no standing because the wind turbine agreement was between the town, the utility and renting farmers, not the Winkler family.

Winkler said the turbines don’t really help save energy costs because they are subsidized by the government. He also said he believes research into cellular ethanol and nuclear technologies provides a much better, long-term answer to state and national energy needs.

Winkler said he agrees with the usual arguments against the large structures.

“These ones [in Marshfield] will be huge,” Winkler said of the wind turbines.

“The top height of the blade will be higher than the U.S. Bank Building in Milwaukee — some 420 feet. The blades will weigh seven to nine tons each, and the span will be wider than a 747 airplane is long.”

Vickerman said many claims against wind turbines are exaggerated.

He added the cost of developing wind power also is likely to cheapen over the long haul compared to the electricity provided from coal or gas plants because there is no fluctuation in fuel cost with wind.

Vickerman said he believes the growth in wind production is at the right pace to meet the 2015 state mandate. He said there are 55 commercial turbines in operation in Wisconsin, amounting to 53 megawatts of wind capacity.

“But this year,” he said, “we will have another 342 megawatts come on-line from 195 new turbines.”

He also said he sees the wind turbine industry picking up more steam as the technology advances.

Citizens group deflates
wind turbine craze

By Dennis A. Shook

It is difficult to stand against the growth of wind turbines without being blown over by environmentalists and the industry.

But an advisory committee formed in western Wisconsin’s Trempealeau County appears to have succeeded in pushing wind turbines away, at least for the time being.

Last December, the county enacted a committee-drafted ordinance that imposes strict restrictions on the location of the wind turbines there.

The ordinance appears to place virtually all of the county off limits to large-scale wind farms because it requires wind turbines higher than 150 feet to be at least a mile from the nearest home and a half-mile from neighboring property lines. Most turbines constructed for commercial power generation are around twice that size.

There are also setbacks in the 16-page ordinance that keep turbines away from roads, railroads, wildlife refuges and other environmentally sensitive areas.

The citizens committee claimed turbines can cause sleep disruption, bodily harm, ice projection from blades, seizures and disruption to emergency communication lines. Members said their information came from acoustic engineers, wildlife agencies, national and state wind associations, wind turbine manufacturers and scientific agencies.

The group that sought to locate wind turbines there — AgWind Energy Partners LLC — issued a statement Jan. 30 indicating it believes the ordinance was simply trying to ban wind turbines.

Jim Naleid, AgWind’s managing director, told the County Board there was virtually no land that could be developed for wind turbines because of the restrictions in the ordinance.

But the citizens group maintained the ordinance was not aimed at preventing wind turbines. And Kevin Lien, the county’s plan department director, said larger commercial turbines can still be sited through a conditional-use permit if the owner of the property and those property owners within a half-mile of the site agree to the development.

Lien did acknowledge no such individual agreements have been pursued.
“In their minds, maybe they feel the rules are too restrictive,” he said of turbine companies, “because we did not issue a blank check.”

Cristeen Custer, a citizens committee member from West Salem, said the group “was charged with examining the potential impact of wind turbines on the health and safety of the citizens. We drafted an ordinance that takes into account the unique geologic and demographic attributes of our county.

“We determined the most appropriate setbacks for wind turbines with a focus on safeguarding the health of people who live in Trempealeau County, not the goals of potential developers.”

Deloras Vind, whose husband served on the committee, said, “The people who want to locate wind turbines on their property have the right to mitigation to settle their zoning issues.”

Vind said she also spent about 1,000 hours in the past year researching wind turbines and their impact and admitted she opposes them. But she denied the ordinance was designed to ban them from the county.

“We’re very happy with the ordinance that the County Board passed in December to protect our health and safety,” she said. “It doesn’t stop the wind turbines but it sets down rules they need to follow.”

Environmentalists hope the increase in wind powered energy opens the door for possible decreases in the pollution produced by power plants fired by coal or natural gas.

“It’s clean, it’s homegrown, it makes economic sense, and it’s a critical part of addressing global warming,” said Dan Kohler, director of Wisconsin Environment, a nonprofit environmental organization.

Kohler said having more wind turbines come on-line also will help develop new technologies and increase the state’s local energy production.

That increase should be viewed as good news for Wisconsin energy consumers because the state imports about 20 percent of its overall energy, said David Jenkins, director of the state’s Office of Energy Independence.

“That’s money that is leaving the state that should be staying in Wisconsin,” Jenkins said.

There is also a windfall in the wind turbine construction process for others.
Hesselbach said We Energies pays anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 annually to lease land for the turbines from landowners, many of whom are farmers that use the land while they collect the stipend.

Another beneficiary of the production of the wind turbine farms has been local government.

Earl Steffen, town chairman of Marshfield, said once the project is operating at full capacity, revenues paid by the utility to the town through a payment in lieu of taxes program should provide about $120,000 annually, or about two-thirds of the town’s annual budget.

Steffen said accepting the turbines is part of the town’s overall responsibility to power production.

“If you buy a refrigerator or a computer, you have to plug it in somewhere,” he said. “And that energy comes from the overall power grid.”

On the business side, local manufacturers capable of producing wind turbines that generate 30 megawatts have the potential to generate around $17 million in marketing and up to 300 jobs, according to a study published in 2004 by the state’s Division of Energy Services.

Fond du Lac’s Decker, who signed a 20-year lease to allow for his two wind turbines, said he believes they are the best energy approach for the future despite the fears of some.

“We can’t continue to go on the way we have been using fossil fuels” Decker said. “Of all the sources of energy, wind has the least amount of environmental impact.”