Greener harvest New Mexico might be getting greener.

Environmentalists and business leaders say the state would reap a cornucopia of benefits if it cashed in on its greatest crops: wind and sun

By Dan Shingler
Tribune Reporter

Despite the drought and brown pi§ons, New Mexico might be getting greener.

There’s a wind-driven, solar-paneled bandwagon in town and everyone from tree huggers to corporate stock optioneers and government econocrats is climbing on board.

Finally, they say, the secret to successful renewable energy development has been found: the profit motive.

"The way one makes change is by getting belief systems and economics to work hand in hand," said Jeff Sterba, chief executive officer of Public Service Company of New Mexico.

That’s a message not lost even on die-hard environmentalists. Lately, they’ve been speaking in economic tongues to get their message across.

The Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy and the New Mexico Public Interest Research Group and held a press conference last week touting the benefits of renewable energy.

But this wasn’t the usual sermon on heavenly pure air and water versus the brimstone of global warming.

This time the environmentalists were talking about economic development: jobs, tax revenues, land lease payments for rural land owners and the benefits to be had by local economies if renewable energy sources are developed.

Wind savings

Amy Welch, outreach coordinator for the coalition, presented a study on the economic benefits of a wind farm versus a similar-sized natural gas-fired electrical generating plant.

Welch ran down a laundry list of potential benefits the state could reap if it used wind power to meet new state requirements that 10 percent of New Mexico’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2011. To do that, the state would need to have 624 megawatts of wind generating capacity.

Local governments would receive about $24 million in tax revenues from construction, compared to about $5.9 million from a gas plant, Welch said, because the wind farm’s more expensive construction costs are taxed, while the fuel burned by the gas plant is not.

Local landowners would receive payments of up to $4,400 per windmill, amounting to $5.7 million in lease payments through 2011, during construction, and $1 million per year after that. Plus, they can still use the 90 percent of their land not devoted to wind energy for ranching or farming, Welch said.

And she said wind power creates and sustains more jobs than does a more traditional gas-powered electric plant. Welch said building the wind facilities necessary to meet the state’s renewable energy requirements would create about 1,200 jobs during the year of installation, and about 80 permanent jobs thereafter to maintain the facility. That compares to about 397 jobs for the construction of a similar gas plant, which would then sustain about 22 permanent jobs after it was built.

Local benefits

One might question Welch’s calculations, coming from an environmentalist, but even PNM confirms many of her conclusions.

PNM spokesman Don Brown said a wind farm is indeed more expensive to build than a gas plant and also takes more people to run.

The 130 megawatt Delta-Person Power Plant in Albuquerque, for example, requires only two people to run it, even though it probably produces more power in a year than does PNM’s giant 200 megawatt wind farm in eastern New Mexico.

As for economic benefits to landowners and small rural communities, that’s something PNM has been bragging about for a year as the state’s first major player in the wind energy arena.

PNM estimates Quay and De Baca counties will receive more than $40 million from its wind farm over the next 25 years, including $450,000 a year in payments to local governments and $550,000 a year in lease payments to local landowners.

That’s a mighty attractive proposition to ranchers, said Robert Lumpkin, a retired school teacher who works as a ranch hand north of the wind farm, near Tucumcari.

"Fifteen years ago, I sold a 500-pound steer for a dollar a pound and we bought a new pickup truck for $12,500. Earlier this year, we sold a steer for a dollar a pound, but that same pickup truck costs $30,000 or more," Lumpkin said.

The economic benefits of wind farming – which Welch described as the state’s "newest cash crop" – are already real in the eastern part of the state.

"This gets down to a personal level – I can name names of people who I know have more money than they used to have and are spending it in our area," Lumpkin said.

Industry potential

But there will be benefits for more than just ranchers if New Mexico continues to pursue the development of renewable energy.

Oil, gas and coal still hold the face cards in the state’s energy hand, but New Mexico’s ace in the hole as far as economic development goes may be its potential for developing wind, solar and biomass energy sources.

"Renewable energy, biomass, geothermal, hydrogen fuel cells – all of those are obviously part of our future in a big way. New Mexico is uniquely positioned to be a leader in these resources," said state Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans. "I think it will be a major industry for us."

Homans said both he and Gov. Bill Richardson are staunch supporters of renewable energy development in New Mexico.

With New Mexico having some of the best wind, sun and biomass energy potential in the country, and being an energy exporting state already, the state would be foolish not to exploit its position, Homans said.

"We have a far greater supply of wind, solar and geothermal energy than we have demand for in the state. So we can think big with it and we can think in terms of being an exporting producer," Homans said.

Besides, he said, New Mexico already has some of the best laboratories in the country working on the technologies needed to make renewable energies more efficient and profitable.

"The research and development that we have in this state, especially at Sandia (National Laboratories), is right out there at the front of the pack," Homans said.

After a recent trip to Asia, Homans said the South Koreans were specifically interested in working with New Mexico laboratories on renewable energy sources, and all of the Asian automotive companies he spoke with were interested in the state’s work on hydrogen fuel cells.

"They need to be first to market, and we can help them do that – that’s a great role for New Mexico," Homans said.

Strange bedfellows

But New Mexico can do more than just produce and export energy, it can leverage the technology developed here to secure a role in manufacturing the equipment needed to generate renewable energy. Homans said that is part of the state’s strategy to seek high-value but low-volume manufacturing industries, which pay workers higher salaries than most manufacturing jobs.

"We want to be loved and sought after for our brains," Homans said.

It’s little wonder people like Homans, Sterba and Welch are speaking the same language when it comes to renewable energies, said former New Mexico Gov. David Cargo.

Cargo said the state has seen a renewed interest in environmentalism in the past 10 years for a variety of reasons, including self-interest.

"You’ve got a lot of people who depend on outdoor recreation for their income. When you go to a ski area, you want to see clear skies," Cargo said. "Just from an economic development standpoint, environmentalism has tremendous benefits for us."

That, in turn, is spurring interest in renewables, Cargo said.

It’s also spurring cooperation between some strange bedfellows.

Groups like the New Mexico Public Interest Group – vegans of the energy world – have been working with companies such as PNM – which burns more coal in the Four Corners area than all the world’s bad boys on Christmas morning.

Currently, the two are working to draft a law they’d like to see the Legislature pass that would codify the state’s regulations concerning renewable energy development.

Sterba, for one, is not surprised that such diverse groups have become allies.

"They don’t have to have the same interest. They just have to have the same end zone in mind," he said.

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THE BIG THREE

Here are New Mexico’s top renewable energy sources (one megawatt powers 800 average New Mexico homes):

Solar

New Mexico ranks second in the nation in amount and magnitude of sunshine. The sunshine could generate an estimated 100 million megawatts of electricity if the state was one big solar panel – more than enough to power every home in the nation. The sun can also passively increase the efficiency of buildings through window placement, thermal walls and other devices that allow buildings to benefit from light and heat.

Biomass

It sounds high-tech, but biomass energy is probably the oldest heating technology there is. Ever build a fire? New Mexico may not be as heavily forested as some states, but there are enough nuisance plants, such as the water-sucking salt cedar, and dead pi§ons from the drought, to provide enough fuel to support some biomass energy production. New Mexico has enough biomass fuel to produce about 1.6 million megawatts of electricity a year.

Wind

Being a big state, New Mexico has a lot of air, and it’s often moving. In fact, New Mexico ranks 12th in the country in terms of wind energy potential. Not bad for a state with no ocean breezes to rely on. There are an estimated 1 million acres of land in the state suitable for wind energy development. It could produce more than 50 million megawatts of electricity each year.

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