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In some states a second important economic tool is making wind power a virtually risk-free investment. In 2004, New York established what is known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a law requiring power utilities to purchase at least 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2013. The deadline is absolutely critical: Number crunchers estimate that by 2010 New York State will not have enough power to run itself. Critics say the standard is artificially inflating the green power market, but New York is hardly alone: At least 20 other states have passed similar mandates.
So for the moment, a wind power boom -- boom with a lower-case b -- is on. Wind power generating capacity in the United States grew by about 25 percent last year, and we'll likely see the same percentage growth this year, if not more. U.S. wind power plants are now capable of producing 31 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough juice to run three million homes and avoid the release of about 23 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is quite encouraging, but still modest when viewed against the backdrop of the total U.S. energy market: 31 billion kWh represents only 1 percent of the nation's electricity needs.
Historically, investors have been reluctant to go anywhere near wind because it turns the traditional economics of the energy business on its head. Constructing a coal- or oil-fired power plant, for example, consumes 20 percent of an energy producer's lifetime budget; buying fuel and operating the plant gobbles up the remaining 80 percent. Wind and solar power are governed by an opposing rule of thumb: 80 percent goes to costly, up-front infrastructure and 20 percent to upkeep. So yes, the wind is free, but catching it will cost you dearly: A three-blade, industrial-size turbine now costs about $1 million.
At that price, we are no longer talking about wind power as a personal statement by off-the-grid homesteaders. (Residential wind power systems are still quite expensive for the average homeowner: about $40,000 for a 10-kilowatt system.) Instead we're talking about multinational corporations sinking hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars into wind on the safe bet that fossil fuels will someday run out. They're betting too that the world's governments -- not just the folks in Washington, D.C. -- will eventually cough up richer handouts that will make Big Wind an attractive proposition.
Subsidies are a fine tool to stimulate a nascent technology, but the trouble with the boom/bust model is that some players may be tempted to make a short-term investment, then cut bait. Since its inception, Maple Ridge has been passed like a baton to increasingly large conglomerates. First, it was developed in part by Houston-based Zilkha Renewable Energy, which was purchased in spring 2005 by Goldman, Sachs, the investment banking giant. Goldman formed a new corporation, Horizon Wind, which operates Maple Ridge under a joint partnership with the Portland, Oregon–based PPM Energy (which acquired Atlantic Renewable in 2005) and is owned in turn by Scottish Power of Glasgow. This spring, both Horizon Wind and Scottish Power were themselves bought by larger international energy providers. Horizon went to Energias de Portugal, the world's fourth-largest wind power producer, for $2.15 billion; Scottish Power was absorbed by the Spanish company Iberdrola, the world's largest renewable energy provider, for $22.5 billion. Lucrative subsidies are drying up in Europe, so it is logical that renewable energy providers would seek holdings in the United States, which is just beginning to get the hang of wind. Noting that the United States is the fastest-growing wind power market in the world, the president of the Portuguese firm told Bloomberg Media, "If you want to be a top player, you need to be in the U.S."
So far, there are wind energy projects in 40 U.S. states, and more coming from the multinationals. For some people, this is cause for rejoicing. Bigger companies can erect bigger projects, pay handsomer royalties to the landowners from whom they lease land, and usher in a world of green power faster than that earnest, mail-order turbine staked out in your organic garden. But others care not a whit for Big Wind. Watching the flurry of profit-taking, they see not a new kind of energy business but simply business as usual. "This is not about green power," says Gordon Yancey, owner of the Flat Rock Inn on Tug Hill, who opposes the wind project that is literally in his backyard. "There's nothing green about it. The only gree in it is greed."
Money makes it all so easy to swallow, and that's the most understandable reason why so many people in Lowville welcomed the turbines. "They've offered us landfills and low-level nuclear waste," says Arleigh Rice, a retired dairy farmer and Lowville's town supervisor, or chief fiscal officer. "I'll take windmills any day." (While those other options promised tax payments and new jobs, they did not offer individual royalty payments.) During the two phases of the wind farms construction, each of which lasted six months, every hotel, diner, and restaurant in town was full with 400 construction workers, a mix of locals and out-of-towners. The wind companies bought up 25,000 truckloads of gravel and 77,000 cubic yards of concrete from local suppliers. The newly built operations and maintenance facility just up the road from the Burkes' house will serve as a headquarters for as many as 15 to 20 full-time staff employees -- a similar mix of locals and out-of-towners -- who monitor and repair the turbines. (On any given day, nine or ten of the turbines are down for routine maintenance.)
Rice's counterpart in nearby Martinsburg is an engineer named Terry Thisse. He's a rugged-looking man in a red down vest who sells Jet Skis, ATVs, motorbikes, and snowmobiles from his sporting goods store near the largest local dairy. He explains that in lieu of paying full taxes on the turbines, Maple Ridge's owners will make reduced payments to the county for the next 15 years; according to Thisse, this is a better deal than Maple Ridge would get if it had to pay the presumed property taxes on the turbines.
"This allows us to get a leg up while we're laying out the high start-up costs," says Moore. After 15 years Maple Ridge will pay the full tax, and by agreement landowners will never be responsible for any portion. (This is a common arrangement between Big Wind operators and host communities.) The exact size of the reduced payments will be determined by the kilowatt hours produced, but the total infusion to the community is expected to be $8.5 million annually.
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