Climate and energy

This rain. So much of it. Here in NE KS, we have corn standing in water, wheat looking beat down in places, alfalfa getting shaggy and hay still standing in the fields.

Some fields might be lying fallow, some might just be where it was too wet to plant – but the erosion is pretty impressive. If you didn’t get your crops in for whatever reason (and not a lot of people where I am seem to do cover crops), you probably lost a lot of topsoil.

Potential for rapid growth of wind industry in Kansas. In an article in the Hays Daily News, Sarah Kessinger goes over the national picture of wind development, and how Kansas might fit in – as always, Sarah is so thorough that she is hard to summarize – just click on the link and read it. (Something she has mentioned in other articles, KS will be welcoming over $1 billion in transmission line development over the next five years.)

She also interviewed the KS congressional delegation on their thoughts re the federal renewable tax credit, which so far is only getting renewed in measeley one year increments. Quotable:

The U.S. wind energy industry took off this year like no other — installing 1,400 megawatts of new wind farms in the first quarter alone. The American Wind Energy Association estimates the new generation’s value at $3 billion… Nationally, 17 new turbine manufacturing facilities also have popped up in just over a year, again highlighting the wind sector’s rapid expansion.

“America’s wind industry can deliver the goods in terms of clean energy and new clean technology jobs,” the association’s Executive Director Randall Swisher said. “But if Congress does not act quickly, this momentum could be derailed at the worst possible time for the economy, placing 76,000 jobs and over $11.5 billion in investment at risk.”

Swisher noted that when the credit lapsed in previous years (1999, 2001 and 2003), development dropped off significantly, by up to 93 percent some years.

For the most part, the KS delegation seemed generally positive – ie, “renewable energy is a wonderful thing, great concept, love the idea!” – but very vague and noncommittal about the actual tax credit extension.

If you’d like to share your own thoughts with them, of course you can always locate your congressperson through www.congress.org.

As mentioned above, lots of Midwest farmland is currently being deluged with water. Extreme precipitation cycles often lead to erosion. Is this really a good time to take CRP lands out of the program? Well – as this Wichita Eagle article reports, it’s happening.

CRP stands for Conservation Reserve Program. The government pays farmers to take marginal lands (along waterways, etc.) out of agricultural production. The purpose is to prevent erosion and provide habitat for wildlife. Much to the delight of hunters, game birds do especially well in CRP lands. In part as a result, the KS hunting industry has been increasing.

As the Eagle reports, Kansas currently has CRP contracts on about 3.1 million acres.  Contracts on about 70% of them, or 2.2 million acres, are scheduled to expire within five years. Beginning in July, limited grazing and haying can also occur on CRP land.

Skyrocketing food prices, though, have led to a farm boom (NYTimes). Speculators are rushing to snap up any part of the food chain – from farmland to processing plants – that they can possibly buy. With big profits in the offing, many farmers are looking to put these marginal lands back in production, especially to grow King Corn.

Counterforces. I mention this because when reading media coverage about food and farming lately, there seem to be two types of stories (that don’t always match up). (1) Yes, there is a farm boom and farmers are making money for once, but (2) grain prices are crazy volatile and fuel prices and other input prices (like fuel!) are rising as well, and so – are the margins of profit really changing?

Farmers who raise not just food, but energy – ie, oil and gas wells (someday maybe wind, too) – seem to be enjoying (1) and thus padding the brunt of (2). But the point is that these factors could really change a lot in the next five years.

Another important point – the Wichita Eagle article on CRP lands ran on the outdoors page. Hunters and fisherfolk have a lot of interest in CRP. And while the Eagle didn’t mention it, there is now an amendment to the Kansas constitution that gives these folks rights under law.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org