Comments by Susie Cunningham

Commission District: 4

I think National Geographic says it well... 10 Reasons to promote wind. It is abundant. China, for example, has enough harnessable wind to increase its electricity consumption 16-fold. It is carbon-free. Reducing carbon emissions is a key part of any plan to transition from fossil fuels. It is non-depletable. What we use today doesn’t affect how much we have tomorrow. It does not require any water. This is in contrast to other water-intensive energy sources, such as nuclear and natural gas. It does not use any fuel. Wind farm developers are ready to sign 20-year fixed-price contracts, Brown said, because the main cost associated with wind is building the farm. Wind turbines don’t use a lot of land. It’s true that wind farms take up a lot of land. But the turbines themselves only occupy 1 percent of a wind farm’s land area, which leads to the next point… Land owners can double-crop. It’s possible to produce cattle, wheat, corn, and other commodities while also harvesting wind energy. Far from creating a NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) problem, wind farms become very desirable in agricultural areas. It is locally available. Wind is everywhere. It scales up easily. A wind farm can go from 20 to 400 megawatts easily. Wind farm construction is not time-intensive. The power can be brought online quickly.