A PR Problem: What Does Government Do?

In our 2016 election, there were all kinds of elements at work, but underneath it all is a long-term distrust of the federal government. The government uses regulations to control industries and tells people what to do. The states are allowed some of these functions, as people tend to know people on school boards, natural resource and water districts, utilities etc. The people do see the need to decide where the power line goes.

We are facing issues of climate and water and food. The favoritism of new solutions over old ones is seen as corruption. Supporting old ways (burning coal) is not. I have convinced several people that tar sands is a bad product, but when I turn to climate issues, they dismiss it as “I don’t feel it’s any warmer.”

We had a governor’s race a few years back. The guy that wanted to be governor bought his way in. His solutions were not solutions, just standard Republican policy. Taxes, school vouchers, NRA support. His main claim seemed to be “my opponent is a Democrat!” A rural community development program run by that Democrat seemed to be working, then federal funding disappeared. His fault! And Governor is of course Pro-Life! Republicans are never pro-future-of-the-planet, though that would seem to be tied up with that life.

Water issues are important to people West of Iowa and Missouri. The plains states all have futures dependent on water and climate change. Water is something that is under local control. People from both parties and each county get involved. Ranching is done where there is not enough water to grow crops, though some special crops are grown where the climate and studies allow it, such as sugar beets.

Climate change is Al Gore and “all those East coast liberals.” Yet, Iowa has capitalized on wind power, where the others further West have not. Some of that has to do with power needs locally. The one definite advantage of coal is that big cities have rail and you can transport coal to most cities. Rural areas seem to use electrical power from the nearest major city, but there are plants that support a number of towns of 10-20 thousand population.

Also, one sparsely populated state has made use of wind power: “The state of South Dakota is a leader in the U.S. in wind power generation with over 30.4% of the state's electricity generation coming from wind in 2015. South Dakota has 583 turbines with a total capacity of 977 megawatts (MW) of wind generation capacity.” (Wikipedia).

Our governor is not interested. He has taken coal money and NRA money. The counties with enough population would all benefit from wind power tax money. The energy generated in a county can be taxed there, as well as the property. Even Trump era tariffs would not hurt it as they do solar power (panels are made in China). The massive parts of windmills are made in the US. We have cities that are willing to ignore the governor and will build wind farms if a company moving to the area requires it. Wind power has some fluctuations, so we will actually need to invent better ways of storing power.

The electrical grid is wider for the same number of customers supported compared to traditional plants. Also, distances of greater than 20km (from where the wind is) currently are difficult to handle for the low voltage generated. To put it another way, immense amounts of power generated by coal power stations can immediately be transformed to very high voltage near the plant. Normal power plants and the transmission at higher voltage will carry power over 400km. The handling of power substations and transformers will no doubt be improved.

Investing in wind turbines alone is sometimes a problem. Germany had a problem of producing “too much power”. The interaction with coal plants is not optimized there. New, better grids are being built, but states and countries will need to decide to pay for those. As it is, wind power is reaching many communities already. In the US, the leading states (% power by wind) are:

Iowa (36.6%)
South Dakota (30.3%)
Kansas (29.6%)
Oklahoma (25.1%)
North Dakota (21.5%)

Those areas certainly include much of the windy prairie. Our one major wind farm with 400 wind turbines does not rank well with those but is generating a lot of income: $2.6 million in property tax revenue to the the county.

If you wish to look at a map of the major wind farms and a list of the power generated, here is the Wikipedia link. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_the_United_States

All power plants are listed in Wikipedia as well. We have both coal and nuclear, and as we have a public utility setup, the state owns the plants. The operation of them can be handed over by contract to companies. As the state owns the plants, the most conservative politicians will insist on burning coal as long as possible. There is still no limit in coal supply, compared to other fuels.

Our governor has a cheap solution. No investment needed: let’s not build anything at all. It is not part of his agenda. Others blame red tape in the process investors must undertake in our state.