Wind Power: Who Needs Minnesota?

KELO reports that South Dakota is 4th in the nation in wind energy potential but only 23rd in the nation in the number of wind turbines. That's still the top half, but not nearly the position of market dominance we could assume. What gives?

Public Utilities Commissioner Gary Hanson blames Minnesota:

...[T]o get that power to market and sold, Hanson says it must be transported to large cities such as Minneapolis and Chicago. In other words, it must travel through the land of 10-thousand lakes.

Both states are doing as much as possible to tap into this resource. Hanson says that competition is what's driving minnesota legislation to be frustrating for South Dakota [Luke Evans, "PUC: Wind Potential Hurt by MN Laws," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.09].

Those clever Minnesotans, using their legislation to keep us from competing with their wind generation. Maybe we could get Transcanada to let us piggyback some transmission lines over the Keystone pipeline and ship our electricity to Omaha, Kansas City, and St. Louis.

Or better yet, maybe we need to change the way we look at wind power. When Minnesota decides to play ball, we can make a killing exporting our wind power. But in the meantime, why not focus on harnessing that wind for our own energy independence? According to the US Department of Energy, South Dakota's installed wind power generation at the end of 2006 was 44 megawatts. (By the way, did you notice North Dakota has built four times the wind power capacity? And Minnesota has 20 times our capacity?) What are we doing letting them beat us?) The back of my envelope tells me that's enough juice for about 12,000 homes. South Dakota has 347,000 housing units, plus a whole lot of offices and manufacturing plants. We as a state could start weaning ourselves off power from coal, natural gas, and other resources that we have to import. If we build so many wind turbines that our homes and offices can't use up all the juice (now there's a problem I'd love to have), we still have plenty of room to expand our electricity usage to vehicles (those electric cars are coming!).

Sure, we have the potential to provide 55% of the nation's electrical needs. If we get to work and play our cards right, we can make a killing on the energy market. The country will want our energy, and Minnesota won't be able to stand in the way. So let's quit whining and start building. We can build and use our power capacity right here in South Dakota, save a whole bunch of money on energy imports, and become wind power experts, so that when other states do come knocking on our door, all we do is plug 'em in and flip a switch.