With the United Nations conference taking place in November 2015 and the presidential elections approaching in November 2016, some say it’s time to start thinking about an issue that presidential candidates haven’t necessarily been focusing on.

The UN climate change conference urged people to cut carbon emissions, and one way Iowa has been trying to do that is through wind energy.

Iowa State’s Wind Energy Initiative was enacted in 2008 through an interdisciplinary group of people who work to promote affordable and accessible wind energy throughout Iowa.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Vision hopes 35 percent of the nation’s energy demand will be supported by wind energy in 2050.

James McCalley, professor of electrical and computer engineering and grid integration specialist for the Wind Energy Initiative, said it’s plausible for wind energy to amount to 35 percent by 2050.

“The main impediment is the cost,” McCalley said. “We all want to drive the cost of doing that down.”

A large portion of the expense comes from building, installing and maintaining the turbines. To produce less expensive wind energy, builders look at how they can make blades more efficient and less costly to manufacture.

A second cost barrier is the wind itself. If wind can be predicted at a more accurate rate, then the price of grid installation can go down, McCalley said.

McCalley said reaching 35 percent wind energy is plausible at the current cost, but transmission, or changing the power grid, plays a role in the level of wind that can be used.

“It’s not a technological hard problem,” McCalley said. “We know how to build transmission, we know how to make it, we know how to operate it and we know to run it. Everything’s fine from a technical point of view. It’s a sociological issue. Nobody likes transmission in their yard.”

This can be seen as a negative impact of transferring to wind energy. Property value has decreased based on the proximity of houses to wind turbines, which may not appeal to the eye of a homeowner.

Noise pollution from wind turbines is also a negative impact of turbines close to people’s homes.

Eugene Takle, professor of geologic and atmospheric sciences and wind resource characterization specialist for Iowa State’s Wind Energy Initiative, said he also sees bird and bat kills as being a negative impact of wind turbines.

Takle said birds are more prone to being killed when turbines are erected on mountain tops and flyways for migratory birds. There has even been eagle killings as a result of wind turbines.

Laws have however been passed that require wind developers to check with the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when building wind farms. If eagles are killed because of wind turbines, the turbine owner must compensate by creating eagle habitats at another location.

Takle recalls a statement he heard from an ornithologist regarding the importance of having wind turbines to replace fossil fuels as outweighing the possibility that we could eliminate the American eagle.

“That speaks to her passion about the need because if we don’t [invest in wind energy], then we may take out 50 species because their habitat will just disappear,” Takle said.

Tree bats are also put in harms way by turbines. Tree bats, as their name suggests, feed on insects that sit on the leaves of trees. They see wind turbines as having a similar shape as trees, and casualties ensue as bats that are expecting to meet insects fly into the blades, Takle said. 

Bats only feed in certain areas where the wind speed is low, however. One wind farm studied this effect and started turning off the wind turbines when the bats fed.

The development of wind farms presents positive benefits as well. Since the government doesn’t get involved in the ownership or payment for wind farms, it is the wind developer’s duty to supply landowners with benefits.

Although wind lease terms vary, a landowner can expect to get between $4,000 and $8,000 for hosting a wind turbine on his or her farm, McCalley said. 

The only slight negative McCalley said he sees with hosting wind turbines is that landowners “give up a little bit of land, and generally you have to make some road to get to the turbine to maintain it.”

The overall positive benefit of increasing the U.S. development of wind energy is the reduction of fossil fuel consumption.

While carbon emissions are still produced through the building and transporting of wind turbines, they are low compared with the emissions produced by any fossil fired unit.

The benefit of having wind energy as a way to diversify energy sources will also make the country less vulnerable to threats, Takle said.

Takle refered to having multiple sources of energy — wind, solar and bioenergy — as making us “less vulnerable to disruption of any kind.”

“[It] could be a tornado going through, an earthquake, or some other kind of extreme event,” Takle said. “If you have a more distributed system, you’re less reliant on something centralized.”

Wind farms are a way to make the country more resilient to such extreme events, Takle said.

Another benefit of wind energy over a coal-fired or gas-fired power plant is the reduction of water use, Takle added. Wind turbines don’t use any water, whereas coal and gas-fired energy do because the water is used to generate steam to turn turbines and create energy. This used warm water is then dumped back into rivers, which can upset the ecosystem and impact the groundwater.

“Power plants are taking up a lot of water and creating something that isn’t readily returnable to the natural system,” Takle said.

This is something to consider when keeping in mind that water is needed to sustain human life, and this deterioration of water quality by dumping can result in less drinking water for the population, he added.

McCalley said wind is an “environmentally attractive energy” because it produces no sulfur or ozone particulate in the air.

The production of wind farms also allows for an increase in jobs, both on the manufacturing and maintenance side.

One thing Takle regards as the main roadblock in wind energy production is the lack of political will in the United States.

“Most nations in the world understand the need to go to renewable energy,” Takle said. “In the U.S., we just haven’t taken the political will. We’re dragging our feet on these climate negotiations.”

Takle said the United States needs politicians who understand the consequences of not reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

“We also need a general public that understands the need to reduce energy consumption and to be willing to make changes,” he said.

The country needs political, academic and industry leadership in order to progress in terms of energy used by the United States, Takle added.

“Here at Iowa State, students are trained to be leaders and to have the understanding so they can move into the industry and help promote growth,” Takle said.

A wind energy minor is available for undergraduates at Iowa State, as well as wind energy courses for undergraduates and graduates. The university also has a wind energy doctoral program that focuses on wind energy science, technology and policy.

Students can also get involved with the Wind Energy Student Organization, which hosts speakers and promotes collaborative research at both the university and K-12 level.

“The future is really bright for young people,” Takle said. “We’ve seen it in the high-tech industry — billionaires created by the time they’re 28 on Facebook. That’s just communications, and when we start thinking about energy devices and efficiency and so on, it’s huge.

“The wind energy program at Iowa State wants to be a player in promoting an environment where new ideas are valued and promoted.”