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We wanted to highlight an excellent editorial by the Sioux City Journal on why wind power is “good for Iowa, good for America.” The editorial follows last Wednesday’s announcement of “plans for the largest economic development investment in state history: A $1.9 billion wind-energy project involving the addition of 656 new wind turbines.”

According to leaders, the project will generate as much as 1,050 megawatts of power in the state by 2015, create 48 permanent jobs and 460 construction jobs over two years, provide $360 million in additional property tax revenue over the next 30 years, produce $3.2 million in annual payments to landowners and reduce future electricity rates for MidAmerican customers by up to $10 million per year by 2017.

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Because wind is in inexhaustible supply and some 75 percent of Iowa is considered suitable for wind-energy development with an estimated total resource of 570,000 megawatts of electricity, we haven’t scratched the surface of the potential for this industry in our state.

That’s not just true for Iowa, of course, but for broad swaths of this country (in the Great Plains, off the coasts, and elsewhere) that are highly suitable for wind power development. And developing those domestic, clean energy resources, as the Sioux City Journal correctly points out, would be good not just for Iowa but for America as a whole. Let’s do it.

Don’t believe us that clean energy is under assault by well-heeled fossil fuel interests? Well, then, take a Republican governor’s word for it.

Still, the renewable-energy industry is under attack by oil, gas and coal producers at both the state and federal levels, said Iowa Governor Terry Branstad.

“We don’t have the money that the oil and gas industry have,” Branstad said today at the conference. “We need to get the farmers and community leaders to speak up.” The Republican governor has helped his state become the wind industry’s largest employer.

The wind industry is facing efforts in at least 16 states to dismantle so-called renewable portfolio standards, laws that require utilities to get an increasing amount of their power from renewable resources.

We’d also refer you to the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which has nine Republican governors in its ranks, one of whom (Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback) points out that “[i]nvestment in the renewable energy economy is creating jobs across all employment sectors.” Which is why it’s so important for our country that we defeat the fossil fuel-funded attacks against clean tech.

Courtesy of Earth Techling and “Pascale, a kid from Freiburg, Germany,” this video demolishes the disinformation out there about how wind turbines supposedly are noisy, make people sick, etc. In fact, as Pascale demonstrates, you an barely hear some of the largest wind turbines even when you’re standing right underneath them. What you can here, of course, is the the sound of cars, buses, trucks, trains, airplanes, and all the other features of modern civilization. Note that all those things are far, far louder than even a very large wind turbine. And as an added bonus, wind turbines don’t emit any health-harming pollutants, as fossil-fuel-powered vehicles and power plants do. That should make all of us feel great!

This is exactly what we need to really hyper-charge wind power production in a part of the country that’s been correctly called the “Saudi Arabia of wind.”

The proposed Plains & Energy transmission line would carry 3,500 megawatts of electricty — enough to power 1 million homes — from wind mills in Western Oklahoma to power users in the Tennessee Valley.

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…project backers remain confident in their 4-year-old plan to transport wind power generation from where winds are strongest in the West to where power needs are greater in the Southeast.

“We think we can provide green power at an attractive, fixed-rate price for TVA and other utilities in the region,” said Jimmy Glotfelty, executive vice president for Clean Line Energy. “Having a guaranteed price for 20 years is a great hedge against volatile natural gas prices.”

Again, it’s important to emphasize that the wind power potential in the Great Plains is enormous. This table illustrates what we’re talking about, as does this wind power potential map. Now, it’s largely a question of tapping into this potential, in part by building projects like the Plains & Energy transmission line.

According to an article in Chicago Grid, “Broadwind Energy, an industrial and wind energy gear company based in Cicero, exemplifies Illinois’ choppy wind power landscape.” Among that choppiness is uncertainty regarding Illinois’ state energy policy.

…just as Chicago plays host to the Windpower convention May 5-8 at McCormick Place, a dispute is brewing about how to fund Illinois’ renewable power industry and how wind energy company consolidation will play out.

Environmentalists, wind farm and other renewable power developers and operators are leading an effort in the Illinois Legislature to change how renewable energy is purchased because market changes have left the state’s renewable energy standard unworkable. The result could give wind farm operators a more reliable, longer-term revenue stream.

The proposal, opposed by powerful utility Commonwealth Edison as unnecessary, would give all renewable power buying authority to the Illinois Power Agency, which now buys power for utilities ComEd and Ameren, and take it away from alternative suppliers that have sprung up in the marketplace. The alternative suppliers could still sell renewable energy to customers who want to buy more than the law mandates, but it wouldn’t count toward the state’s mandated amount.

Meanwhile, as the policy uncertainty continues, “104 companies in Illinois with more than 15,000 employees, including 60 companies in the Chicago region,” await the outcome.