Day County Wind Online! 99 New Megawatts, No Smoke

It was so sad last fall when plans for the Big Stone II coal-fired power plant collapsed. My conservative friends were so eager to holler that enviro-whackos had shot themselves in the foot, denying good Americans of the expanded electrical production they deserve. What, oh what would we do without the 600 megawatts of electricity Big Stone II would have produced?

But wait: what's that hum I hear? Oh, maybe it's the 99 megawatts of clean wind power pumping out of the 66 new turbines just switched on at the new Day County Wind Project east of Groton.

Now let's review: The PUC got the Legislature on board with most of its Small Renewable Energy Initiative to make it more affordable for South Dakotans to produce their own power. Iberdrola is expanding its wind power capacity by 306 megawatts by the end of this year and would like to add another 170 megawatts. SDWEA is studying developing another 1000 megawatts of wind power.

Gee, someone remind me: what did we need Big Stone II for?