James Roberts: State Needs to be Part of Renewable Energy Boom

In the late 1920s, my grandfather, Bill Roberts, walked off the farm and into a work force that helped build the America we know.

Eighty years later, young Americans like myself walk into an economy teetering on collapse, a global energy crisis and a hemorrhaging job market.

I've spent the past year working to promote renewable energy and its benefits in Kansas. What I've discovered from talking to students, business owners and families is not a radical sense of morality regarding the environment or irrational fear that managing carbon emissions will undo the American way of life.

Instead, I've heard time and again from all corners of this state that young Kansans are ready to take our place in a new era of industry, growth, innovation and, yes, responsibility. We hope to make the promise of America a reality for ourselves and our children.

In Kansas, we have tremendous opportunities. As confidence in our economy wanes, a cutting-edge domestic industry filled with skilled jobs sits waiting. Kansas will have 1,000 megawatts of wind on line by the end of 2008, but we still trail Texas, Washington, California, even New York.

Last year, the wind industry grew at a rate of 46 percent in the United States. Wind manufacturer Vestas has more than 2,500 employees in Colorado. Clipper employs 1,100 in Arkansas. Iowa enjoys hundreds of new jobs from wind manufacturing plants. Nolan County, Texas, cut taxes and built new schools as a result of increased property values driven by the local wind industry.

So why not Kansas?

Legislative leadership, special interests, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and the governor's office have squabbled over the costly future of coal in Kansas while not doing enough to promote a renewable industry that could benefit Kansans statewide. Consequently, we lack a comprehensive policy that encourages renewable energy.

We can no longer simply hope to cash in on the renewable energy economy as it enriches neighboring states. We are obligated to act if we want to ensure the benefits of an industry that blends traditional American ingenuity with 21st-century technology.

Energy policy is bigger than any party or single corporation. If we demand action on renewable energy we can -- as my grandfather and his neighbors did -- take our place among the great generations of Americans working together to build a better future.

James Roberts is the statewide coordinator of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, based in Topeka.