WV Executive

An old logging road climbs out of Rupert, West Virginia winding across Beech Ridge and below Cold Knob, before falling back into Trout. It is from here, atop adjoining ridges and amid old strip mines and forest clear-cuts that West Virginia’s next energy play will arise.

The difference is, unlike coal, natural gas and oil, this energy source is unlimited and “green.” The only sound is the nearly silent whooshing of windmills, not the blasting away of rock and soil. There are no worries about roof falls or underground fires such as those which have traumatized the state this year.

Joining In Green Energy

Beech Ridge Energy LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago-based Invenergy LLC, wants to build a $300 million, 124-turbine wind farm along the tops of these western Greenbrier County mountains, providing 186 megawatts of electricity, enough power to serve 50,000 homes—or more than the number of housing units in Greenbrier and Fayette counties combined. The turbines would stretch for a combined 15 miles along Shellcamp, Smokehouse, Beech, Rockcamp and Big ridges and Cold Knob, Old Field, Blue Knob and Nunly mountains.

“This is a project with an awful lot of benefits,” says Dave Groberg, director of business development for Invenergy. “It makes electricity without polluting at all. The fuel never runs out. It’s domestic and it creates good economic development in an area where they can use it.”

In early February, Beech Ridge announced an agreement with the West Virginia Building and Trades Construction Council, AFL-CIO, to hire more than 200 local workers for the six to eight-month construction. Once built, the project would require about 20 full-time employees at an annual salary of about $35,000 each, more than twice the county’s per capita income. Over its 20-year lifespan, Beech Ridge would also pay annually about $400,000 in county taxes, fifth highest in the county, and about $200,000 in state taxes.

The project, currently being reviewed by the state Public Service Commission, would be the fourth permitted in the state. Only one is currently operating: the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center on Backbone Mountain in Tucker and Grant counties has been running since 2002 and its 44 turbines have a generating capacity of 66 megawatts. Permits have been issued for two more wind farms in Grant County: a 200-unit project by NedPower and US Wind Force LLCs 166-turbine wind farm. US Wind Force has also announced plans to seek a permit for 50 windmills on Jack Mountain in Pendleton County. The projects signal West Virginia’s growing place in the green energy universe.

Industry Momentum

The American Wind Energy Association says that 2005 was the most productive year in history for the nation’s industry, as nearly 2,500 megawatts—or over $3 billion worth of equipment—were installed in 22 states. The trade group is predicting the momentum will continue in 2006 and 2007, the years the West Virginia projects would come on line if approved.

AWEA says already-installed wind farms will produce as much electricity as 2.3 million households use. Harnessing the wind’s power goes back 5,000 years, but it wasn’t until the late 19th Century that people began using wind to power electricity-producing turbines. Development remained slow until the oil shortages of the 1970s.

Since then windmill technology has improved, although even the most efficient turbines are able to extract only about 40 percent of the available “kinetic energy;” scientists estimate the cap at about 59 percent. Still, just manufacturing the turbines is estimated to become an $80 billion business worldwide by 2010.

Much of that growth is powered by Europe, where the European Union has mandated that 20 percent of energy be produced by renewable resources, which include wind and solar, by 2020. In Denmark, a world leader in using wind energy, 20 percent of electricity already is generated by the wind alone. The European Wind Energy Association says capacity within the EU increased by 20 percent in 2004 and 18 percent in 2005, reaching the EUs 2010 capacity goal five years early.

In the United States, AWEA estimates that wind power will reduce by 5 percent the amount of natural gas used for electricity production in 2006, helping lessen the pressure on rising natural gas prices. California edges out Texas as the domestic leader in wind-generated energy, followed by Iowa, Minnesota and Oklahoma. In the East, New England is leading the way, especially in the creation of tradable “green credits.”

Local Potential

But West Virginia’s string of 3,000- to 4,000-foot ridges also provides opportunity for the state to join in. “West Virginia has wind resources consistent with utility-scale production,” says the US Department of Energy’s Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program. “The good-to-excellent wind resource areas are concentrated on ridge crests in the eastern part of the state just south of a Martinsburg-Clarksburg line. There are scattered areas along these ridge crests that are estimated to have outstanding-to-superb resource.”

In Greenbrier County alone, there are 13 ridges and peaks of more than 4,000-foot elevation, but most of them are owned by the US Forest Service which has no plans to permit wind development. Also, Beech Ridge has said it will not put a turbine on Cold Knob itself—one of the highest—because of its recreational importance.

Invenergy was drawn to the Greenbrier County location because of several factors beyond the elevation and prevailing winds: a willing landowner (MeadWestvaco Corp. in this case), ease of connecting to the electric grid, lack of endangered species and remoteness of the site. The project would be located on about 300 acres of a 70,000-acre MeadWestvaco-owned tract. The land has been actively mined and forested and the proposed location of the windmills cover many old mine sites and obvious clear-cuts. Additionally, Groberg notes, location of the wind farm would reduce the likelihood of MeadWestvaco selling the land “to who knows who for who knows what purposes.”

The process of producing energy from the wind is relatively simple: A three-bladed propeller sits atop a tower attached to a turbine. (When a blade is straight up, the height can reach more than 400 feet, although the tower itself is usually in the mid-200-foot range.) As the wind blows, it spins the propeller, transferring the kinetic energy from the wind to the electricity-creating turbine. The electricity is then sent down transmission lines where it joins up with other electricity from all sources and powers our televisions, computers, offices, manufacturing plants, furnaces, air conditioners and battery chargers.

As concern about global warming caused by fossil fuel consumption has increased, governments and regulators have begun requiring utilities to move toward more “green” energy sources. “In more than 20 states, if you sell retail electricity, you have to prove that a certain percentage of your electricity is made from renewable resources,” Groberg says.

Since it is not possible to identify a particular watt of power you use at home or work and say it was generated by green energy, the General Attribute Tracking System has been devised to enable companies to measure how much of their total energy comes from renewable resources. Invenergy is negotiating with several utilities in surrounding states to sell the power Beech Ridge generates. Most of those states have laws requiring specific amounts of energy to be generated by green sources and will use GATS to prove they are in compliance.

Groberg stresses that this system does not allow some producers to purchase credits as a means to get around restrictions on the amount of air pollution they can create, but serves only as a way to allow companies to prove they are meeting state mandates to reduce their use of electricity made by conventional power plants.

A Windy Debate

While the environmental benefits of wind energy are clear, there nevertheless has been loud—and perhaps surprising—opposition to the Beech Ridge project from some in Greenbrier County. The PSC has received protests—mostly form letters—from more than 1,500 persons or groups, including the Greenbrier County Convention and Visitors Bureau. While some of the opposition challenges the effectiveness of wind energy—one critic calls it a “barely relevant sideshow,”—the financial benefits of the project or its environmental impact, most of the complaints center on fears the 15-mile string of towers would be unsightly.

“Our board’s opposition to Beech Ridge was based on the impact the wind turbines will have on our viewsheds,” writes Kimberly Cooper, executive director of the convention bureau. “West Virginia is known for its wild and wonderful assets. That is what our organization markets each and every day. We believe this project would detract from these qualities and cause the natural beauty and unspoiled landscape to be permanently altered.”

However in Tucker County, where the Backbone Mountain project has operated for years and turbines are much closer to major roads than the Beech Ridge project, the county Convention and Visitors Bureau features the wind farm on its brochure. “If anything, it increased (tourism) it for a short period of time out of the curiosity factor,” says Robert Burns, former Tucker County economic development director.

And there has been little noticeable negative impact on the economy. “Canaan Valley is growing with increasing housing sales and development, plus there additional investment going on,” Burns says.

A form protest postcard from Renick resident Michael Campbell includes this handwritten plea: “Greenbrier County is one of the prettiest places on Earth, and shouldn’t be exploited by outside companies. In other words: Have ’em tear up their own back yard.”

Another letter from Slatyfork residents Michele Grinberg and Jim Withrow echoes Campbell’s, but broadens the opposition. “Wind turbines in West Virginia are the wrong idea in the wrong place,” write the Pocahontas County retirees. “West Virginia's beauty and corresponding ability to attract tourist dollars and second-residence dollars derives from its beautiful, tight mountain ridges. Once a turbine is in place, one cannot see the ridge, only man-made large ugly machines. The ‘viewshed is destroyed. Turbines should not be placed in Greenbrier, Pocahontas, Tucker or Pendleton counties, which are among our most beautiful counties. Any turbines currently in place should come down at the end of the land-lease periods or sooner, if the company finds the venture unprofitable… This is not economic development; this is economic destruction…Yes, we need energy; and yes, we need to conserve, and maybe wind turbines in the already visually blighted northeast are just fine; however, please be a good steward of our beautiful land and vote NO to this misguided project.”

Even though protestors argue the project would degrade the view, others find the string of turbines, with their whooshing blades, more elegant that unsightly. Also, no house would be closer than about a mile to any one turbine, and realistically, views from populated areas would be limited and likely only on the clearest of days.

“The core problem there is what’s beautiful to one person is not to another person, so it’s all personal,” says Burns in Tucker County. “To me, they’re not ugly; to some people they are.”

Groberg acknowledges being surprised by the level of opposition, noting that a clean coal demonstration plant was approved for nearby Rainelle, using government funds, “and nobody said ‘boo’ about it, but they criticize us. I think it’s a classic case of ‘not in my back yard’,” Groberg says, contending opposition is “100 percent viewshed based. All the other issues are used to try to scare people.”

Wildlife Concerns

In addition to worries about tourism, chief among those “other issues” are concerns about the number of birds and bats which may be killed. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy bases its opposition on “the project’s likely effects on bats and birds and their habitats. The currently operating Mountaineer Wind Energy Center in Tucker County, West Virginia, is known to kill significant numbers of bats and birds.”

An environmental report prepared for Beech Ridge and included with its PSC filings acknowledges turbines kill bats and birds, that the mortality rates have been higher at the Backbone site in Tucker County than in other installations and the same is likely to be true at Beech Ridge.

It estimates, based on experience at Backbone, that some 6,000 bats a year would be killed by the project. The study notes, however, that no endangered bat is present in the area and adds: “Data do not exist to dismiss the risk of such disturbance or displacement (of bats or their habitat), but preliminary information now available supports the conclusion that wind turbines and their blades do not substantially disturb/displace bats.”

And others point out that birds and bats also frequently fly into regular transmission and television towers, as well as buildings and other tall structures, causing many more deaths than windmills. One estimate says telecommunication towers alone annually kill 40 to 50 million birds.

While environmentalists may be split over wind power, the public is not. A poll by Yale University last year found that 87 percent of Americans support expanded wind farms. The continued growth of wind energy, then, seems assured. Although currently supported by tax credits and other incentives, as technology improves and other energy prices climb, many in the industry believe wind power will outgrow those supports.

Groberg notes that Invenergy is “long” on wind energy, and believes the industry is here to stay, whether or not federal tax credits set to expire in 2007 are renewed. And in his latest State of the Union address, President Bush proposed a 22 percent increase in financing research into clean energy, including $44 million—a $5 million increase—in wind energy.

The PSC will hold hearings on Beech Ridge’s application in Lewisburg on April 25 and in Charleston May 10-12. A final ruling is required by August 28.