Bringing Wind Power To Seattle

The need to develop alternative energy is one of the incoming Obama administration's talking points. Here in Washington, alternative energy looks a lot like huge wind farms east of the mountains; according to the Tacoma News Tribune, the state's wind farms are currently producing enough electricity to power two Seattles.

The primary obstacle to utilizing all that power, says Portland-based U.S. Department of Energy agency BPA, is that there aren't enough transmission lines from sparsely-populated Eastern Washington to the denser areas that really need the resources--and that the BPA doesn't have enough credit from the federal Treasury to launch the project of building more transmission infrastructure.

That's why Rep. Jay Inslee and other Washington legislators want Obama to include an extended credit line for the BPA in the upcoming stimulus package. With more credit, the agency could begin work on what would be a project similar in scope to the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s, creating thousands of jobs and making important strides towards improving Washington's clean energy infrastructure.

Extending the BPA's credit line would be a brave move, and one that would directly affect Seattle's economy (more jobs, potentially cheaper energy in the long run) as well as our city's impact on the environment. If Obama's not going to help us out with the viaduct or the Mercer Mess(sigh), this could be a high-impact, and dare we say, downright romantic way for the new president to show the country he really does care about alternative energy and the infrastructure that makes that energy available to the United States' cities.

Photo of Windmill by Seattlest Flickr Pool Contributor VectorSnob. Gorgeous.