Climate and energy

REAP stands for the Rural Energy for America Program, a grant program for renewables and energy efficiency that is authorized under ye auld Farm Bill. Funds are awarded in several categories and cycles, and the USDA announced one set of results last week.

Like the headline says – in this particular cycle, $13 million went to 233 projects in 38 states, and two of those projects were in Kansas. Kansas of course has enormous potential in renewables, and farmers are especially poised to benefit.

I took a look at the results and broke them down in terms of the Big 12 states who received REAP funding. We all think in terms of the Big 12, right? (Right?) So, let us consider this ranking one form of an Energy Big 12.

REAP funding awarded to Big 12 states, in total grants and loans:

1) Iowa – 44 projects, $5,330,190 (over 40% of overall funding awarded)

2) Nebraska – 28 projects, $1,265,471 (almost 10% of overall funding awarded)

3) Missouri – 3 projects, $212,500

4) Colorado – 2 projects, $119,772

5) Kansas – 2 projects, $48,040

6) Texas – 2 projects, $20,226

I know. Why don’t they re-name these funds the  Rural Energy for Iowa Program? I did notice an interesting trend to the IA awards – many of the awards are for the same amounts. That argues to me that applicants with similar needs are categorized and centralized (maybe by the IA Energy Office?) so they can fill out identical applications.

Obviously, as you go further down the results, since Missouri is ahead of Kansas you already know what I think. By far the bulk of the MO dollars went to rural electric co-ops, BTW. And KS beat TX, big whup. I don’t want people to look at this list and say yay, we beat TX! I’d rather they looked at it and said wow, we want to beat IA, so let’s get our heads together and figure out how to do that.

Oklahoma was strangely missing from the results – also, if Illinois and Minnesota were in the Big 12, then KS would be super-bummed, and we would never win the national championship. I didn’t even have the heart to total the dollars that those states brought in.

Another interesting note – I’m not clear exactly what section of REAP funds these awards are for, the press release was vague, but rural electric co-ops and public power districts who applied all seemed to get awards of $100,000, across the board. No rural electric co-op in KS got these funds.

(I actually bet that you could add in DOE stats on wind development, and AWEA stats on wind resources, and come up with a REALLY cool Renewable Energy Big 12 ranking – and you could continually update REAP funding awards, too… someone should do that.) (Although I’m 100% certain Big 12 is copyright and you could also get in really big trouble if you call it that.)

There are of course more REAP funds to be awarded, so these rankings could change. However, I don’t know how significantly they will change – NE and IA always do pretty well.

Please forgive my math, some of those totals are probably a little off, working at home today with no adding machine.

— posted by Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org