Last updated on 2012.05.23
In continuing celebration of juche, Governor Dennis Daugaard travels to White Lake today to dedicate the Crow Lake Wind Project. (Expect to hear the term self-reliance at least three times in the Governor's speech.) This new wind farm, which has been cranking out clean green power since March, is the largest wind farm owned by a power cooperative.
Dennis and the guys were going to hold the dedication at the wind farm, but flooding concerns near the towers have moved the pomp and circumstance to White Lake School. (Note that flooding near a wind farm doesn't generate anything like the rumors or headlines generated by flooding near Nebraska's two nuclear power plants.)
Basin Electric subsidiary PrairieWinds put up 108 wind turbines at the Crow Lake project between October 5, 2010, and February 9, 2011. The facility cost $363 million and has 162 megawatts of generating capacity. That's $2.24 million per megawatt, with no additional fuel or environmental clean-up costs. Recall that building the failed Big Stone II coal plant would have cost $2.7 million per megawatt.
Bonus Wind Boost: Last week the Public Utilities Commission granted a permit for a key segment of the CapX2020 transmission project. This transmission line will carry power from all those wind turbines springing up around Brookings County to juice users in Minnesota. We'll get this state's wind wired up yet!
When is our City-Owned Electric Utility going to bond for the construction of two or three large wind turbines so Madison can become more self-reliant and ecologically responsible and perhaps keep rate increases in check for future decades? I realize they have to come to some agreement with WAPA and Heartland, but the discussion should begin sooner than later.