Larry Flowers, team leader for the National Wind Techology Center in Golden, Colo., speaks at a workshop at Great Basin College Tuesday night on wind energy.

ELKO - The time has come for Nevada to protect its future by pushing for development of renewable power resources, according to Gov. Kenny Guinn's energy adviser.

Richard Burdette said that if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries continues to price crude oil at $36 a barrel or higher and the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise, renewable energy will be increasingly important.

"Renewables in 10 years will be as valuable as they can be," he told a workshop audience at Great Basin College Tuesday night.

Currently, $2.5 billion is pulled out of Nevada to purchase energy and fuels, including gasoline, said Burdette, who is director of the Nevada State Office of Energy.

"Nevada has no coal and no natural gas, and very little crude oil, ... but Nevada has abundant renewable resources," he told the slightly more than two dozen people at the workshop.

The state has geothermal resources, good wind in a number of places and solar energy in southern Nevada, "so it's time for us to start making some lemonade," Burdette said.

Nevada also is at a disadvantage because Sierra Pacific Resources is financially weak, which means the company can't buy long-term contracts for natural gas to fuel power plants or for wholesale electricity supplies, he said.

"I'm not throwing rocks," Burdette said.

Sierra Pacific Resources owns Sierra Pacific Power Co., which supplies power to most of northern Nevada and Nevada Power, which supplies the southern part of the state. Power cooperatives also provide power in rural areas of Nevada.

"Renewables are an important opportunity to hedge energy costs," said Burdette, who worked for the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada before joining Guinn's administration.

To provide a little history, Burdette said that when utilities were fully regulated, Nevada found it easier to go outside the state for energy supplies, but since deregulation, the state is "paying the piper."

As power prices increase, the mining, farming and ranching industries feel the brunt the most because they sell their products at the market price, he said, and can't pass a price hike onto consumers.

Rural Nevada can pursue renewable energy projects, however, that boost the economy and provide power for their operations or for the whole electrical grid.

"Wind is coming. We need to find out how to make it pay for Nevadans," Burdette said.

The workshop focused on showing local business people and farmers and ranchers how they can take advantage of the Farm Bill that provides funding for renewable energy projects.

For instance, a ranch or group of ranchers or a small business can install one to three wind turbines and receive government funding to help with the costs.

"Wind is a great hedge against natural gas's uncertainty," said Larry Flowers of the National Wind Technology Center in Colorado, part of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Flowers said wind energy offers economic development potential to rural areas and is what "really drives" communities to pursue the installation of wind turbines.

The costs are high in the beginning, because the towers are 250 feet high and require a crane to install, but the fixed costs are low.

"These are big suckers. You will see them for a long time," Flowers said of the turbines, adding that they aren't as noisy as they were 20 years ago, but communities have to decide if they want the towers.

In return, communities receive wind lease payments, increased property taxes and job growth, especially during construction for larger projects, Flowers said.

For instance, 100 megawatts of production, which would come from large wind farms, brings in a $500,000 to $1 million in property tax revenue, according to his slide presentation.

Flowers also reported that wind turbine sites can be completed in four months.

Farmers and ranchers also can look at developing wind power for their own operation, without selling to a utility, but Burdette said in a break in the meeting that the Farm Bill funds cover only renewable energy projects for operations, not residential use.

Flowers listed the steps to developing a wind farm include site selection, land agreements, a wind assessment, environmental review, economic modeling, interconnection studies, permitting, sales agreements with a power company, financing, turbine procurement and a construction contract.

Flowers said wind resources for a given site have to be assessed for a year.

"Don't think you can do it in a week," Flowers said.

Flowers also told the audience that problems with raptor kills at wind farms has lessened with new knowledge of how to prevent the birds from flying into the turbines.

The projects are located in areas where birds aren't as apt to fly down to reach a rodent, he said.

Consultant Jeneane Harter said the length of time for a project is the reason why USDA Rural Development and the Nevada State Office of Energy are conducting workshops across the state to nudge people into starting renewable energy projects.

The Farm Bill's program that provides renewable energy grants extends for five years, and "we're only in the second year. There are three years to get projects together," she said.

Harter said plans also call for doing workshops every year to encourage people to get project teams together and do the assessments for wind energy.

Developers also need business plans, Dan Johnson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development agency said in a break from the workshop.

He described the grant program for the workshop audience, and Harter talked about the contacts and resources needed to create a project. Pete Knesky of the Nevada State Office of Energy also spoke.

Johnson's office is in Elko, and his phone number is 738-8468.