Reds And Blues Agree On Wind In Iowa

In Iowa, A Bipartisan Push to Become Leader in Wind Energy; Thanks to state officials who have long supported renewables, Iowa now leads all U.S. states in the percentage of its energy produced from wind. Big companies, including Facebook and Google, are taking notice and cite clean energy as a major reason for locating new facilities there.

Roger Real Drouin, June 6, 2016 (Yale 360)

“…[Amid the variability in crop prices, [wind turbines offer a steady annual income for Iowa farmers with long-term leases allowing them to be built on their land]. Such lease payments can net $5,000 to $10,000 a year per tower, an amount that typically increases by a small percentage annually...[Across Iowa, the wind industry] employs roughly 7,000 people, supports 11 facilities that manufacture turbine-related components, and has attracted more than $10 billion in capital investment. The state that leads the U.S. in both corn and pork production also has the distinction of leading the nation in percentage of its energy produced from wind, now at 31 percent…Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are among the companies that identified use of wind energy as one of the reasons to locate new facilities in Iowa…[Thanks to far-sighted planning by Republican and Democratic Iowa leaders, the state could meet all of its electricity needs from wind power by 2030] and have enough left over to export to other states…In the next three to five years, an additional $8 billion to $10 billion in investment in wind farms and manufacturing is expected in Iowa…” click here for more

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