Wind-power goal in reach, group says
Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008
FORT SMITH — Arkansas has a chance to help move America toward a goal of generating 20 percent of available energy from wind by 2030, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Wind Energy Association.
That goal was part of the challenge presented to more than 220 people gathered for a Wind Energy Conference at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith on Thursday. Gov. Mike Beebe opened the conference by voicing his support for renewable energy sources.
Larry Flowers, the laboratory’s director, said the group has set a challenge for the country to meet that will benefit the economy and the environment. Currently, the United States produces less than 1 percent of its energy using wind power, according to the laboratory’s tracking.
If Arkansas were to build wind turbines to harvest 1, 000 megawatts of electrical power per year, it could help push the country to meet the national goal and help the local economy, Flowers said.
Direct benefits to the landowners could be $ 2. 7 million in land-lease payments per year, more than $ 9 million in tax payments to local governments, and the immediate creation of nearly 2, 000 jobs with a payroll of $ 185. 5 million during the construction of the turbines, Flowers said.
Wind turbines would provide 268 continuing operations and maintenance jobs with a payroll of about $ 21. 2 million per year, he said.
Flowers based his estimates on actual construction in states like California, where wind energy got its modern start in 1985. It is one of the 25 states in the country that require a percentage of their available energy come from renewable resources each year, he said. Arkansas is not one of those states.
Arkansas already has some wind-power construction job growth.
Warren Ault, national account manager of North American commercial operations for LM Glasfiber, said that company’s new plant in Little Rock will send its first windmill blade off the manufacturing line next week.
LM Glasfiber, the world’s largest manufacturer of windmill blades, is headquartered in the Netherlands. It operates three plants in North America: Grand Forks, N. D.; Gaspe, Quebec; and Little Rock.
The company expects to employ more than 1, 000 people at the plant within five years. Those employees will earn $ 24, 000 to $ 31, 000 annually, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in November.
LM Glasfiber broke ground on a $ 150 million plant at the Little Rock Port in October. It is operating in a temporary plant until the new building is finished.
Little Rock’s transportation options of river, railroad, airport and interstate helped the city land the new plant, as did the large available work force and what the company considers a convenient distance to the North Dakota plant, Ault said.
As more companies and investors become interested in wind energy, the company’s business will boom, Ault said. The state has a chance to benefit from the construction of wind farms and other windharvesting mechanisms in addition to benefiting from the sale of wind power to energy companies.
A question from the audience asked who are the organized opposition groups to wind power and constructing wind farms in the U. S.
Flowers could not name any large group who opposes wind energy in theory but many residents don’t like the appearance of wind turbines.
LM Glasfiber’s research found that the larger the population of an area and the more money people earn in that area are related to the opposition level against the prospective wind turbine, mainly because of the appearance of the structures.
“The more they earn, the more they will oppose you,” he said.
Northwest Arkansas could benefit from harvesting wind power, according to studies of wind currents.
Stephen Pollard, an engineer with Environmental Dynamics in Fayetteville, said certain areas of Arkansas, including Northwest Arkansas, are in wind currents considered fair to good for operating wind turbines.
He’s counted only six wind turbines in or near Benton and Washington counties. One in Eureka Springs and two in West Fork are residential-size turbines. A larger, 75-foot tower turbine in Prairie Grove is operated more as a hobby than an energy source, he said.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has a 12-foot rotor diameter turbine on a light pole in the parking lot of its Pleasant Crossing store in south Rogers.
Crowder College in Neosho, Mo., is building a 125-foot tower to hold a turbine with a 54-footdiameter rotor as a teaching tool, he said.
St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Springdale has ordered three small turbines it will install near Interstate 540 and within sight of the minor league baseball stadium now under construction. The church hopes to influence others to seek alternative energy sources, he said.
Charlie Stotts of Roland, Okla., came to the conference hoping to find a way to add windmill blades to his company’s product manufacturing line. He declined to name the company, but did say it makes fiberglass construction components, a product for which demand has dipped in the wake of development slowdowns. “We have some unused lines that might be converted,” he said before the conference began.
To contact this reporter: sroberts@arkansasonline. com
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
