Area leaders address need for renewable energy bill

On March 19, the Senate Environment and Energy Committee passed two significant components of the responsible Minnesota Clean Energy Plan — a policy improving the state’s Renewable Energy Standard to 40 percent by 2030 and the yearly energy savings goal from 1.5 to 2 percent.

Eric Steen, director of communications at Blue Green Alliance, explained to the group why he believes wind energy is the state’s best option for energy. He said that wind energy has saved Minnesota more than 30 billion gallons of water since 2004, and 7.5 billion of that is in the Worthington area alone.

“I lived in Springfield for a number of years, and my lawn was always as brown as it could be because water is tough to come by,” Steen said. “We should be trying to save it by using renewable energy.”

Another clean energy campaign member, Brad Haupert, works as a site supervisor for Vestas-American Wind Technology Inc. Haupert described how wind energy is not only good for the environment but creates needed jobs.

Haupert said that there are currently more than 2,000 people in Minnesota who work in the wind industry. Minnesota Vestas currently employs more than 60 people, operating and maintaining more than 450 wind turbines with another 200 planned for 2015. He said adding those turbines will create another 20 jobs in the state of Minnesota alone.

“They are good long-term jobs in rural communities. So you don’t have to live in a metropolitan area to have a good job with good benefits,” Haupert said. “That is probably the main point that hits home with me, because I am able to stay in the area that I grew up in, and I am able to have a good job and provide for my family. The wind turbines are going to stay on the ground. They are going to have to be serviced year after year, and that will keep people employed here.”

Among other supporters of the Minnesota Clean Energy Plan was Jim Nichols, a Lake Benton farmer, former Lincoln County commissioner, former Minnesota state senator and former Minnesota secretary of agriculture.

Nichols urged the importance of having renewable energy in the state. He pointed out how the state has grown in the wind energy industry and how he believes that has helped the state.

“Twenty years ago, we didn’t produce any energy in Minnesota — no ethanol, no wind, nothing,” Nichols said. “Now look what we produced and the jobs that it has created … One reason why our (state’s) economy is better than other states is because we have all these renewable energy jobs.”

Nichols continued by explained why he believes wind energy is better than oil. He said that a wind turbine produces more energy than an oil well.

“A barrel of oil produces 5.8 million British thermal units of energy. … A 1.5 megawatt wind turbine at 40 percent capacity produces 65 million Btu of energy per day,” Nichols said. “You don’t have to refine it, you don’t have to put it on a rail car through Minneapolis … all you have to do to use it is flip your light switch. We have struck oil (with wind energy), and North Dakota will be pumped dry in 27 years. … The best thing about my wind turbine is it will never run dry.”

The last speaker was Adyiam Kimbrough, a senior at Worthington High School. Kimbrough is in favor of the Clean Energy Plan because she wants her generation’s future to be sustainable.

“I want to have a sustainable Earth for the future generations, and my kids and my kids’ kids to live in a (place) as good as I have it or, hopefully, even better than I have it,” Kimbrough said.

The Minnesota Clean Energy Plan is part of the omnibus bill (Senate File 1431) that will make its way to the state senate floor and be voted on sometime in April.

Area leaders address need for renewable energy bill