Editorial: A break for clean energy

Monday, Nov. 12, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

As managing partner of Nevada Wind LLC, Tim Carlson has been working patiently for years to develop a wind farm northeast of Las Vegas big enough to power about 300,000 homes.

His plans were dealt a blow in March 2006, when the Defense Department announced its objections to any proposed wind farms in most of Clark, Nye and Lincoln counties. The department feared that modern windmills could interfere with radar used by military installations.

All that could save Carlson's project was a specific evaluation by the military to determine precisely whether his project planned for a site in the Wilson Creek mountain range in Lincoln County presented a problem.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., long a proponent of realizing this state's potential for developing renewable energy industries, received Defense Department cooperation when he sought to make that evaluation a priority.

Now Reid has heard from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that a technological analysis of the Wilson Creek site alleviated the military's concern and it no longer has any objections to its use as a wind farm.

The decision pairs well with a bill that Reid sponsored in September. Among its provisions is one that would provide long-term federal loans for start-up renewable energy companies. The loans would be available for the building of transmission lines, as many sites for renewable energy are far from population centers.

Reid submitted the bill as a way of answering critics of his opposition to polluting coal-fired power plants, three of which are now proposed for Nevada. Conventional thinkers say renewable-energy entrepreneurs, lacking the hundreds of millions of dollars that transmission lines can cost, are necessarily dependent on nearby coal plants so they can tie into their transmission lines.

Reid's bill, which we support, would provide real opportunity for clean energy producers. It could certainly help build up the fledgling renewable-energy industry in Nevada.

We believe that with the right incentives, Nevada's plentiful sources of wind, solar and geothermal energy could be developed over time to produce as many or more megawatts as traditional coal plants - without the attendant emissions that contribute to acid rain, health problems and global warming.