The Community Word

March had too few days when kites remind kids that wind is a power that rivals the rainfall expected in April showers.

And central Illinois has too many of the silent, skeletal remains of windmills from decades past.

But things change; progress occurs.

Sometimes in spite of political impediments to reform.

Prairie farmers in the 19th and 20th centuries depended on rural windmills to pump water, grind grain and – in the years before rural electricity – even generate a little power. Once a fixture of the flatland, a lonely reminder of civilization, the typical 20-foot windmills eventually mostly stopped turning and working, becoming forgotten weapons in the fight to fit in with sometimes inhospitable land. Broken windmills choked by trumpet vines and colored by rust still creak and groan along the countryside, but they belong to another time and another technology.

Today, in areas like Bureau County 45 minutes or so north of Peoria, giant cousins of those windmills gracefully spin, quietly moving sophisticated gearboxes and turbines to turn the kinetic energy of breezes into mechanical energy, or electricity.

Good timing.

The most recent Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows electricity itself up 3.4% in the last year, prices for energy in general up 18.9%, and gasoline prices up 32.7% (and that’s before the latest round of price hikes).

Energy corporations are making – well — windfall profits, too. The top five oil companies – BP Amoco, Chevron (Texaco/Unocal),ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobile and Shell - recently reported huge 4th quarter profits. ExxonMobil set a record with $11.7 billion in the last three months of 2007; Shell made $6.7 billion, Chevron $4.9 billion, Conoco $4.3 billion and BP Amoco a “low” of $3 billion.

However, Big Oil isn’t investing in tomorrow, according to Joe Kennedy, the ex-Congressman who runs Citizens Energy Corp.

“The U.S. oil industry in the last five years has made something like over $800 billion in profits,” he told Business Week magazine. “None of them is putting [profits] back into developing new sources of crude. ExxonMobil put zero% into renewable or alternative energy. BP, 6/10ths of 1%; ConocoPhillips, 7/10s of 1%; Shell 1.3%; Chevron, 0.5%.”

In Illinois, four major wind farms already operate, and there’s increasing interest in the state for wind-generated electricity, according to the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at WIU in Macomb.

Illinois’ wind-power capacity increased more than 500% last year, says the American Wind Energy Association – 12 times the U.S. average and 8th in the nation in capacity.

“I would expect that number to keep on ratcheting up,” says Bill Whitlock of Horizon Wind Energy of Houston, Texas, which operates the 161-megawatt facility in nearby McLean County.

Indeed, the state is expected to double its capacity – this year, according to Howard Learner of Chicago’s Environmental Law and Policy Center.

“Illinois is in the forefront in wind power development,” Learner said.

Before long, wind power could provide 5%-10% of Illinois’ energy needs, according to Rob Kanter of the University of Illinois Environmental Council, and last summer the General Assembly passed a measure lending a hand — requiring 25% of Illinois’ energy to be derived from renewable sources by 2025 – 75% of it from wind.

Developers reportedly have more than $1 billion in projects for Illinois.

Impressive – yet it’s one-third of one-quarter of profits from the least-profitable of Big Oil’s Big 5.

Looking at U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory maps showing premium sites for windmills, there aren’t as many in Illinois as states such as Minnesota or North Dakota. Central Illinois and much of the state are mostly categorized as fair, with a few “good” spots east of Peoria’s metro area, and an expansive area southeast of Quincy. However, its central location has many transmission lines and good access to the country’s power grid – and a lot of demand.

The failure of the public sector and private enterprise to invest in renewable sources of energy such as wind profoundly hurts the possibility of weaning society off foreign oil and of using resources that are cleaner and better for civilization, instead.

On Capitol Hill, the House passed the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Act (HR 5351) by a 236-182 vote, attracting bipartisan support including Congressmen Ray LaHood (R-Peoria) and Phil Hare (D-Rock Island) to try to create incentives for investing in wind, solar and other energies. But it failed by one vote to achieve a “supermajority” 60 to overcome a Republican filibuster.

GOP Presidential contender and U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was absent, but his office told the Center for American Progress that he would not have supported the bill anyway.

So that proposal languishes in the Senate Finance Committee, and consumers cope with higher and higher energy costs.

And the wind cries …

Bill Knight is an award-winning journalist who teaches at Western Illinois University. Contact him at bill.knight@hotmail.com.