How to build energy independence

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| Thursday, July 17, 2008 |

A crane lifts the base of Erie's wind turbine onto a foundation. View an entire slideshow of the construction at www.erie1.net/ewt Buy this Photo

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View a slideshow on construction of the Erie School District wind turbine.

Our national energy picture remains a mess while some of our smallest local governments are moving methodically toward energy independence.

Mercer County is the latest to lead the charge with a wind turbine project to power the school district, county nursing home, jail and hospital. This collaboration is seeking federal grants to cover construction costs for a turbine that would relieve up to $350,000 a year in energy costs.

Mercer County is following the trail blazed by the Erie, Ill., school district. Years of planning and grant writing led to construction of a wind turbine to power the school district.

The City of Rock Island bought the privately owned hydro plant on the Rock River to power the city’s public works department.

Though these local governments seem to be moving faster than the feds, the path remains tough. The technology is sound. But actually getting it built requires construction grants, meeting state and local regulations and winning political support from local taxpayers who will foot part of the initial bill.

None of it is easy.

Still, the Erie school distrtict’s pie-in-the-sky dream of five years ago now is concrete and steel and on target to begin producing power next year.

This leadership at the most local levels of government leaves us inspired that those at the highest levels might figure it out, too. Federal and state incentives, like tax credits and grants, are making these local projects plausible. But it is local leadership that is taking advantage of these incentives to redefine our community as ambitious, innovative and forward thinking.

At the front of this pack is MidAmerican Energy, the nation’s largest public utility generator of wind power. MidAmerican is on target to be producing 18 percent of all of its energy from renewable sources, primarily wind. That puts every MidAmerican customer, which means almost everyone in the metro Quad-Cities, out in front in the race toward energy independence.

Now there’s a distinction worth shouting about in our Quad-Cities.