Renewable Energy

Wind Power

Wind power in Kansas is not a new concept. For decades, ranchers and farmers used the power of blowing winds to pump water to fill stock tanks and to irrigate crops. With changes in needs and technologies, the wind is now also seen as a viable means to generate electricity. A 1991 study by Pacific Northwest Laboratory₂₂ ranked Kansas as having the third best wind energy resource, after North Dakota and Texas, with the potential to produce 1,070 billion kWh of electricity annually. For comparison, Kansas utilities generated 41.5 billion kWh in 1998. Yet, thus far, the wind resource for electricity generation has largely gone untapped, as Kansas ranks 13^th in actual electricity produced from wind, and will soon drop to 19^th as current projects in other states come on-line.

Currently, only two utility-sized wind turbines operate in the state, each rated at 750 kW and located at the Jeffery Energy Center in St. Marys. Another 75 residential/commercial-sized facilities in Kansas have a total rated capacity of 1,300 kW₂₃. News reports indicate that a 70-turbine project near Greensburg in Kiowa County and two single-turbine projects at school districts including Olathe are in the planning stage₂₄.

While the development of wind energy will not likely solve all of our energy supply problems in the short-term, the role of this energy source could become important throughout the state. Wind turbine technologies continue to improve, making the machines more efficient at producing electricity from the wind's energy and driving down the cost. The location of turbines on rural property can provide important income, while allowing 95% of the land to still be used for farming or ranching. The development of this energy source, however, may require innovations actions by the State to spur development rather than waiting for the large utilities to do it themselves.

Biomass

There is potential for switchgrass or other fast-growing crops in Kansas to off-set fossil fuels burned in power plants. The benefits of this potential fuel source include:

• It can be grown on marginal lands,
• The vast root system serves as a soil stabilizer and carbon fixer,
• The species is native to our state,
• Expertise exists in the state (K-State, independent researchers).

Experiments are currently taking place in Iowa to determine whether it can become cost-effective.

Ethanol

Biofuels such as ethanol receive a great deal of media coverage whenever gasoline prices get too high, corn prices get too low, or when fuel-additive substitutes (i.e. MTBE) are found to cause groundwater pollution. U.S. ethanol production has increased from 175 million gallons in 1980 to 1.4 billion gallons in 1998, due to state and federal tax subsidies and mandates to use high-oxygen gasolines₂₅.

With the State of California phasing out the use of MTBE by 2002 and the EPA suggesting the ban of MTBE, the demand for ethanol may grow substantially. Its growth may depend on whether tax subsidies are renewed and whether reformulated gasoline mandates continue in cities with substantial air pollution problems.

Many cellulose-based crops such as corn, milo, alfalfa, and various crop-wastes have the potential to be distilled into alcohol-fuels such as ethanol. Four facilities produce ethanol in Kansas, one of which innovatively couples ethanol production with talipia fish farming and cattle feed from byproducts₂₆.

Future ethanol projects in Kansas may see synergistic coupling of ethanol plants with oil production by capturing the CO2 produced during the fermentation of the ethanol fuelstock and using the gas for enhanced oil recovery in the Kansas oil patch. Such a coupling could make two energy sources economical by providing the ethanol producers a market for a waste product and oil producers an affordable source of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

Updated January 2001
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