SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The Indiana Coalition for Renewable Energy and Economic Development (ICREED) is conducting a series of public forums to champion a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) that calls for 10 percent of Indiana’s electricity to come from sources such as wind and biomass by 2017.

The Nov. 11 forum in South Bend included talks by Christopher Moore, managing director of Navitas Energy, John Doster, Invenergy, Bill Barnard, president of the Indiana Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and architect with the Troyer Group, Mike Keen and Gabrielle Robinson, professors at Indiana University-South Bend. Jesse Kharbanda of Indiana Clean Power served as moderator.

According to ICREED, a bipartisan group of elected officials, corporations, rural and urban development groups, public health experts and clean energy advocates, the economic benefits of renewable electric generation to Indiana would amount to $6-9 million over a 10-year period if the state adopted a 10 percent RES by 2017.

New jobs
ICREED further predicts 6,000 construction jobs, 12,000 contractor and retail jobs, 600 permanent maintenance jobs, 1,200 additional contractor and retail jobs resulting from the long-term maintenance jobs and at least 15,000 new manufacturing jobs in the wind, solar, geothermal and biomass industry if the U.S. adopted a national policy for 70,000 MW from renewable energy.

Landowners could receive payments ranging between $4,000-$9,000 per year, per wind turbine installed. In addition, ICREED predicts renewable energy investments can generate significant property taxes and/or payments in lieu of taxes.

ICREED sees renewable energy as a hedge against volatile and rising energy commodity prices and as a way to improve health, i.e. wind power generates zero air emissions.

Cost considerations
Wind generation costs are competitive or cheaper than new fossil fuel generation, and wind turbine costs have decreased by 90 percent during the last 20 years. ICREED predicts they will continue to decline.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center funded the study, written by Peter Boerger of Engineering Economic Associates in Indianapolis. Outside reviewers included Dr. Ryan Wiser, an economist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and two wind industry officials.

The next forum will be Tuesday, Dec. 5, in Kokomo. ICREED will announce the place and details later.

Additional details about ICREED are available by contacting Jesse Kharbanda at jkharbanda@indianacleanpower.org, Wayne Hoffman at whoffman@orion-energy.com, Steve Aker at saker@White Construction.com, Dave Menzer at dmen zer@citact.org, John Doster at jdoster@ invenergyllc.com, Grant Smith at gssmith@citact.org, Brian Wright at bwright@hecweb.org or Steve Jones at SteveJ@enxco.com

Architect: No ‘green bling’
“Don’t use green bling,” Bill Barnard, president of the Indiana Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, told those attending the South Bend ICREED forum.

“Too many people throw something extra in for the sake of being green (as in architectural methods of developing cost-effective, energy efficient and environmentally friendly buildings),” he said. Wikipedia defines “bling” as a hip-hop slang term that refers to expensive jewelry and other accoutrements, and also to an entire lifestyle built around excess spending and ostentation.

Barnard, an architect with the Troyer group, worked closely with fellow Green Building Council members to create the LEED building rating system. That acronym, he said, stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The rating applies to new construction, existing buildings, interiors, cores and shells, homes and neighborhood development.

He showed slides of living buildings - those that harvest all their own water and energy needs on site. “Europe is much more efficient than we are,” he said.

A complete guide to green buildings and their design is available at www.usgbc.com

This farm news was published in the Nov. 22, 2006 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.