s (including landfill gas, livestock waste, timber byproducts,
and crop residue), and other earth-friendly sources.

Renewable energy makes
up about 11 percent of all co-op kilowatt-hour salesnearly three times
the amount marketed by the nations investor-owned utilities, points
out Kirk Johnson, NRECA vice president of environmental policy.

This pioneering co-op
investmentmade for economic, environmental, and community development
reasons as well as to meet strong, 4-percent average annual load growthnow
has begun to pay dividends on other fronts. Nationwide, legislatorsscrambling
to find ways to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed
as the main contributor to global climate changehave focused attention
on coal-fired power plants. Coal facilities, which generate roughly
50 percent of the nations electricity, account for approximately 34
percent of U.S. man-made carbon dioxide output (the largest single source)
and about 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

To reduce reliance on
coal, more than half of all states have enacted renewable portfolio
standards (RPS) that require investor-owned utilities, competitive electric
generation suppliers, and, in some cases, electric co-ops to add increasing
amounts of green power to their generation mixes. Congress may also
impose a sweeping RPS on the restan energy bill passed by the U.S.
House in August included a 15 percent RPS mandate, although the measure
exempted electric co-ops.

Curbing carbon dioxide
and other greenhouse gas emissions must include a mix of clean coal,
nuclear, natural gas, and renewable generation sources, declares NRECA
CEO Glenn English. There is no single magic bullet. But electric co-ops,
serving areas linked to resources like wind and biomass, are naturally
positioned to take maximum advantage of clean power options.

Embarking on a new green
wave, two dozen co-ops in 20 states recently received a total of $270
million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) from the U.S. Treasury
to develop renewable energy projects involving wind, geothermal, closed-loop
biomass (trees grown expressly for electricity production), open-loop
biomass (sawdust, tree trimmings, farm byproducts, animal waste, landfill
gas), small hydropower (less than 25 MW), and solar systems. CREBs,
created in the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, provide not-for-profit
electric co-ops with a way to level the green power financing playing
field with investor-owned utilities, which can qualify for investment
tax credits to support solar energy and a 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour
production tax credit to sprout other renewable sources.

These bonds act as interest-free
loans, and demand for the program is strong, stresses Susan Pettit,
NRECA senior principal for legislative affairs. Electric co-ops have
submitted more than $500 million in applications since CREBs were first
authorized.

Renewables will receive
an additional boost if Congress passes legislation imposing a carbon
tax or creating a cap-and-trade program to lower carbon dioxide emissions,
suggests Tom Key, manager of renewables with the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRI), a Palo Alto, Calif.-based non-profit consortium whose
members include electric co-ops.

Either of those actions
will narrow the price difference between using renewables and coal to
generate electricity, he imparts. For example, a carbon tax of around
$35 to $40 per ton would make some renewables cost-competitive with
coal.

In fact, a recent U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis of an economy-wide
greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill, S. 280, introduced by U.S. Sens.
Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), found that it
would push up the price of coal 129 percent by 2020 and 245 percent
by 2030. In addition, it would drain about $533 billion out of the nations
economy from 2009 to 2030 while growing renewable generation to between
22 percent and 29 percent of the power sector. The legislation calls
for gradually shrinking U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 2004 levels
by 2012, 1990 levels by 2020, 22 percent below 1990 levels by 2030,
and 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Earlier this year, EPRI
released a study, Electricity Technology in a Carbon-Constrained Future, showing
how U.S. electric utilities could reduce carbon dioxide emissions below
1990 levels within 23 yearseven as they add about 40 percent more load,
half of which will be generated by coalby taking aggressive steps in
seven principal areas, including vastly expanding renewable energy supplies.
Leaving hydropower out of the equation, EPRI sees green power, led by
wind energy, leaping from 2 percent of kilowatt-hours produced nationally
today to 6.7 percent by 2030comprising a total of 70 GW.

While renewables by themselves
are not the end-all answer to controlling carbon dioxide emissions from
coal-fired power plants, they are one part of the solution, Key insists.

Blowin in the wind

As projected by EPRI,
wind power will lead the renewable parade. Currently, 150 electric co-ops
either own wind turbines or buy output from wind farms, amounting to
608 MW, or about 5.2 percent, of U.S. wind generating capacity.

Not surprising, co-ops
in states spanning the Upper Midwest and Great Plainsthe great American
wind tunnelconsume the most wind power: Minnesota, 209 MW; North Dakota,
138 MW; Missouri, 107 MW; Oklahoma, 74 MW; and Kansas, 50 MW. Throughout
the United States, wind will kick out an estimated 31 billion kWh this
yearenough to serve nearly 3 million average homes.

During the annual meeting
of Kearney, Mo.-based Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative held in August,
a dozen members snagged T-shirts emblazoned with vibrant-color reproductions
of a new painting, Harvesting the Wind, depicting wind turbines lining a ridge
behind a wheat field during harvest.

The purpose of the painting
is to raise awareness that we have wind energy going on the grid, explains
Platte-Clay Electric CEO Mike Torres. We hope that people seeing the
T-shirts will ask about our wind power program.

Associated Electric Cooperative,
a generation and transmission (G&T) co-op in Springfield, Mo., and
the wholesale power supplier to Platte-Clay Electric, agreed in 2006
to buy all of the energy (156 MW) from three wind farms under development
in the northwest part of the Show Me State (see related article, page
24). The wind power will help Associated Electrics 51 member electric
co-ops in Missouri, northeast Oklahoma, and southeast Iowa meet demand
growth of about 2.3 percent a year, or 100 MW, equivalent to about 45,000
new homes. As a result, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded
the G&T its 2006 Wind Cooperative of the Year Award for initiative
and leadership.

Alaska Village Electric
Cooperative, headquartered in Anchorage, Alaskalong reliant on diesel
fuel to generate electric power at its remote service locationshas
installed 10 wind turbines in the villages of Selawik, 500 miles northwest
of Anchorage and north of the Arctic Circle, Toksook Bay, 500 miles
to the west, and Kasigluk/

Nunapitchuk, 400 miles
west, over the past three years. The co-op also plans to install wind
turbines in Chevak and Hooper Bay, both some 500 miles west of Anchorage
on the Bering Sea.

With average diesel prices
doubling since 1990 and expected to soar higher, our members consider
wind turbines as one way to reduce their monthly bills, explains Amy
Murphy, Alaska Village Electric public relations officer. At the end
of 2006, our average rate was 51 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is pretty
high. EIA, for its part, pegs the co-op as having the highest retail
electric rates in the country.

Starting late this year,
Minnkota Power Cooperative, a G&T based in Grand Forks, N.D., will
purchase energy from 99 MW of a 159 MW wind farm near Langdonthe biggest
operation of its kind in the Peace Garden State. The wind farm, owned
by FPL Energy, will produce and sell more than 350 million kWh annually
to the G&T.

Weve added wind resourcesnow
more than 10 percent of our energy requirementsin response to consumer
interest and with an attractive price from FPL Energy, contends Minnkota
Power President/CEO David Loer.

Corn Belt Power Cooperative,
the Humboldt, Iowa-based wholesale power supplier to 11 electric co-op
distribution systems in northern sections of the Hawkeye State, will
purchase at least 50 MW of additional wind power on top of the 32 MW
it already controls. Coupled with hydroelectric resources, Corn Belt
Powers renewable energy resources will make up nearly 15 p