Energy: War of The Winds

Suffering from migraines and sick of suburban life, real estate agent Dawn Deel fled the outskirts of Detroit three years ago to build a new life in Golden Township, Oceana County, on Lake Michigan's eastern shore. Deel's new house, in an area known for the beauty of its sand-duned beaches and orchard-clad hills, overlooks a fallow field where cherry trees once grew. She hopes this bucolic vista will lure buyers to the adjacent plots she owns. Best of all, her migraines are gone. "Since I've been up here," she says, "my whole physiology has changed." Deel, however, now has a different sort of headache. Alternative-energy companies Michigan Wind Energy and Mackinaw Power plan to build dozens of wind turbines--290-ft.-tall white steel pinwheels--across the county. Some may stand just a quarter-mile from Deel's new house, and she believes that their looming presence will erode the value of her property. She and her neighbors will ask the township this week for a six-month moratorium to reconsider its role in Michigan's largest wind-energy project.

But Deel's neighbor Ron Longcore, 66, a burly, gruff orchardist and Oceana County lifer, wants to lease a sliver of his land to house some of Michigan Wind Energy's turbines. The money, he says, would help cover taxes and insurance on his orchards, averting the need to parcel off parts of the property to residential developers. "I'd rather see one or two towers sitting out there than a bunch of houses," says Longcore. "I want to preserve my way of life."

Opposition to wind power used to come mostly from wildlife enthusiasts, who are concerned about the birds and bats windmills kill. But the battle these days focuses on something much more primal: money. Ranchers and farmers like Longcore across the U.S.--and, for that matter, much of Europe--can earn extra income by leasing out their land for turbines. But as pollution-free wind farms proliferate from California to northern Germany, a trend driven by tax breaks and international concern about global warming, homeowners are worried about the effects on real estate values. "Resistance to wind turbines is inversely proportional to the distance between the individual turbine and the nearest McMansion," says Carol Overland, a Northfield, Minn., attorney who works on wind issues.

The winds of fortune have lately favored people like Longcore because the economics finally make sense. Although wind accounts for only 0.5% of all the power generated in the U.S., a federal tax subsidy of 1.8¢ a kilowatt-hour (kW-h) has made it the nation's fastest-growing source of electrical power. The country had the capacity to generate 6,700 megawatts (MW) of wind-generated electricity last year, up from 2,500 MW in 2000. That's enough to electrify 1.6 million households annually, the equivalent of burning 9 million tons of coal. At 3¢ to 7¢ per kW-h, it is competitively priced as well, costing about the same as power generated from natural gas. Meanwhile, California, New York and 18 other states have passed laws promoting renewable energy that are sure to boost investment in wind.