Wind development could be a multibillion-dollar export industry for Kansas

A new report concludes that calling Kansas the Saudi Arabia of wind power is actually an understatement of its blustery wealth.

Last October, Kansas Lt. Gov. (and wind czar) Mark Parkinson asked the American Council on Renewable Energy, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C., to put hard numbers on the state’s renewable energy potential. The study released yesterday says the Sunflower State could produce so much juice from sustainable sources that electricity could become a multibillion-dollar export industry.

Despite its Middle-East-like energy assets, the report concludes, Kansas lags behind neighboring states, like Iowa and Texas, when it comes to wind development. Given that Kansas legislators seem more interested in arguing about “clean” coal than enacting a renewable energy standard, like, oh, just about every other state in the country, that conclusion wasn’t all that surprising.

By ACORE’s estimate, though, Kansas could churn out as much as 19,000 megawatts from wind — nearly 20 times what’s in operation right now and way more power than the entire state needs to keep the lights on. Getting to that goal, the study suggests, would add $23 billion in economic benefit to the state by 2030.

But there is one hitch. “In order to get to the point where we’re not just talking about one or two thousand megawatts but talking about ten or twenty thousand megawatts, it’s very clear we need to sell that energy outside the state,” Mark Parkinson said in an online press conference yesterday.