May 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Paul Hammel Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

For 35 years, Bruce Lemke has tilled the high hills of extreme northeast Nebraska to reap corn and beans.

Now he's among a couple of handfuls of farmers being given the opportunity to harvest a new crop -- wind.

Lemke's hilltop acres, along with the lofty croplands of a dozen of his neighbors, have been leased by a partnership from Chicago and Irvine, Calif., in what will become the state's largest complex of wind turbines.

By the end of the year, 27 turbines -- each 410 feet tall -- will rise among the crops on a ridge north of Bloomfield.

The Elkhorn Ridge wind project will provide 80 megawatts of energy, enough to power 25,000 homes per year.

Next year, another wind farm of 14 turbines generating 42 megawatts of power, the Crofton Hills project, will be built just to the north and east.

Together, they will make the Bloomfield area the state's wind energy leader, generating twice the energy of the state's current leader, a 60-megawatt, 36-turbine wind farm south of Ainsworth that began operating in 2005.

A major difference will be that local farmers and other Nebraska investors will share in the profits of the $209 million worth of projects here, unlike the public utility-owned wind farms near Ainsworth and Kimball.

Under the state's Community-Based Energy Development Act, or C-BED, wind farms can qualify for a 5 percent state sales tax discount -- if at least 33 percent of the total revenue from the sale of the wind-generated electricity goes to Nebraskans, either residents, nonprofit organizations, Indian tribes or public power districts.

The law's main purpose is to ensure that a good portion of the benefits of wind development will stay in the state, thus maximizing the benefits to rural Nebraska, said John Hansen, president of the Farmers Union.

"Ownership matters," Hansen said. "We learned that in the development of ethanol -- there was a lot of difference between the farmer-owned ethanol plants and those owned by grain trade conglomerates as to where the profits go. We didn't want to make the same mistakes with wind."

A 2004 federal study of community-owned wind projects in other states, he said, showed that such projects provide more than twice the number of local jobs and three times as much local economic benefit as those that don't include some community ownership.

There is a sizable economic benefit -- the Bloomfield-Crofton Hills projects will employ about 150 workers in the construction phase and provide about 10 permanent jobs, as well as pay local landowners more than $600,000 a year to lease land for the wind towers.

Beyond that, the projects will generate almost $9 million in personal property tax revenue in the first five years of operation.

"We're not looking at that many (permanent) jobs," said Lyndsy Jenness, Bloomfield city administrator, "but when you're talking about that type of (tax) benefit to our school system, there's a lot of potential there."

"Potential" is a word used frequently when discussing wind energy in Nebraska.

While the Cornhusker State ranks No. 6 nationally in the potential to generate electricity from wind, it ranks 20th among states in actual wind-generating electricity, with only 73 megawatts of power as of, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

By contrast, Iowa ranks No. 4 in wind energy generation with 1,273 megawatts, and the 10th-best wind potential.

The projects in Bloomfield and Crofton Hills jump one barrier that has blocked wind development in Nebraska: the state's status as a public power state.

Publicly owned utilities such as the Nebraska Public Power District cannot obtain federal tax credits to develop wind energy, a major incentive in building wind farms. But the Bloomfield-area projects have private developers and owners who can qualify for the federal credits.

The projects mark the first time that NPPD, the state's largest utility, has contracted with a private firm in Nebraska for power, said Mark Becker, an NPPD spokesman.

The Columbus-based utility is currently negotiating to sell some of the new wind-generated power to other Nebraska utilities, including the Omaha Public Power District.

Becker said NPPD is currently negotiating to select another 30-megawatt wind farm and will soon begin studying wind potential at seven new sites over the next year. The areas to be studied are Verdigre, Elgin, Tilden, Brunswick, Broken Bow, North Platte and Greeley.

Overall, NPPD has a goal of generating 10 percent of its power from renewable sources such as wind, methane digesters and solar by 2020, Becker said. It's currently less than 1 percent.

As the wind whipped his flannel shirt during a break in planting corn this week, Lemke, 54, said the wind farm has been an opportunity that "dropped out of the sky" for his family.

The wind is a constant on these high hills a few miles south of the Missouri River and South Dakota, but Lemke never dreamed that the ridges would become a home to wind turbines.

He said leasing a couple of acres of land for three turbines on his farm was a no-brainer. He declined to say how much he will get, saying the lease terms are private.

But the $325,000 in annual lease payments, if divided by the 27 wind turbines, would amount to $12,000 a year per turbine.

Deciding whether to become an investor, Lemke said, is a different matter. The amount of the investment required is also proprietary, but Hansen of the Farmers Union said a farmer would have to invest less than the cost of a new tractor to become a part owner in the project.

If a farmer has some extra money, it might be a good investment, said Lemke, who has not seen a prospectus.

There are several things to consider, including an aspect of C-BED that allows local farmers to eventually own the wind turbines. That raises questions of maintenance cost, longevity and, eventually, decommissioning.

"The idea is good, but it's an investment," Lemke said. "I can't say if I'll (invest) or not yet."