Wind Sustains Rural America
Turning to turbines: As commodity prices remain low, wind energy leases offer a welcome source of income for farmers
Cole Epley, November 8, 2016 (Omaha World Herald)
“…[As the fifth and sixth generations of the Brockhaus family gathered the last 20 acres of the fall harvest, they could look] southward over the last remaining rows of the 2016 corn crop to the purveyors of their newest cash crop: four 1.7-megawatt General Electric wind turbines…[T]hey were commissioned in December 2015…[Farming around the four turbines is easy and] the land-lease payments of about $32,000 that landed in the Brockhaus farm coffers…are a welcome source of income as millions of American farmers struggle through yet another year of cratered commodity prices...Wind energy, the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S., is transforming low-income rural areas in ways not seen since the federal government gave land to homesteaders 150 years ago…[and] has saved family farms across a wide swath of the heartland…A five-year extension of a federal tax credit on wind production, passed at the end of last year, should accelerate the construction…By 2030 rural landowners are projected to reap as much as $900 million a year by leasing land to wind developers…” click here for more
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