The answer is blowing in the wind.

• Author: Burmeister, George
• Position: Wind power - Includes related article on windpower misconceptions and facts - Cover Story

Wind power is moving out of California into the rest of the country. Its economic and environmental benefits have caught the attention of legislators and public utility commissions.

No picture describes America's energy future better than a recent photograph taken in Oklahoma. It shows an old oil well--the "see-sawing" hammerhead type used to pump oil to the surface. Only this picture is different. Next to the oil well is a new wind turbine, and it's pumping the oil. (Even more symbolic of U.S. energy production is the much smaller quantity of oil pumped from that well than was produced a decade ago.) As it turns out, the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association has entered into an agreement with an Oklahoma wind turbine manufacturer, Bergey Windpower Company, to power its rural wells.

When most people think about wind power they picture a farm, with a clumsy, 30-foot high, metal windmill pumping water into a stock pond. American manufacturers built nearly 7 million of those between 1850 and 1950. Wind energy is great for pumping water. But today, wind energy means thousands of 140-foot wind turbine towers with 80-foot diameter blades on a "windfarm" controlled by people miles away in computer control rooms--where the power is dispatched over transmission lines to major metropolitan areas.

With a growing environmental awareness, new emphasis on statewide energy planning, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and debate over a national carbon-based tax--wind looks like a new energy resource. The U.S. wind industry has quietly spent a decade on analysis; and this now-proven, cost-effective technology is attracting the interest of legislatures, utilities and utility commissions.

Wind energy is on the agenda this session in Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Worldwide, installed wind power capacity is around 2,500 megawatts. By way of comparison, a typical nuclear plant has a rated capacity of 1,000 megawatts. A typical coal plant is rated at between 400 and 700 megawatts. Theoretically, wind power can provide more energy than is currently consumed annually in the United States.

The Pacific Northwest is poised to be the next leader in wind power. It needs new generating capacity, it has strong, reliable winds, an environmentally conscious population and receptive utilities, along with negative press about hydropower salmon kills. Four utilities plan to place almost 150 wind turbines in a 50-megawatt plant in Washington by 1996.

Although California produces 80 percent of the world's wind power, it is not a particularly windy state. In recent national surveys, California ranks 29th (per capita) among the lower 48 states in wind energy potential. Those same studies rank Washington 28th, Oregon 18th and Idaho 15th. Other areas of the country have even more potential. Researchers have described the plains states as a "Saudi Arabia" of wind energy. One site in Montana could provide as much electricity as five nuclear power plants; and one ridge in southwestern Minnesota is thought to have the potential to generate as much wind energy as California produces. The wind resources in North and South Dakota, Texas and Kansas alone, if completely developed, could provide more than half of the lower 48 states' electricity requirements. In fact, Texas alone could theoretically generate 36 percent more wind power electricity than is used in the entire continental United States. This potential led to recent wind power hearings by the Texas Public Utility Commission.

Even the most ardent supporters believe wind will not be a primary power source for large urban areas in the near future. Wind turbines cannot replace traditional fuel burning plants because of wind's intermittent nature and our inability to capture and store the energy. However, wind energy is a supplementary resource that can contribute to a stable, diverse utility system.

Subsidies help but are no longer necessary for wind to be competitive with other energy sources. For the most part, federal wind subsidies dried up in the mid-1980s, but the wind industry continued to grow. In fact, 53 percent of California's current wind-generating capacity was installed after the incentives were removed. (Between 1986 and 1989, wind developers did utilize federal tax credits as they were phased out--but they played a minor role.)

"The reason we saw continued wind power development is because, even without the federal tax credits, wind was...