Rob:  Well, joining me now here in studio is Steve Stadler with Oklahoma State University and the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative.  So, how are we doing here in the state?
Steve Stadler:  I think we’re doing pretty well.  We’re doing fine, Oklahoma.  From a dead stop, or start, in 2002 with no wind power, we’ve come up through the big wind turbine farms up to about 600 megawatts, a megawatt being a million watts, and enough to power somewhat over 150,000 homes.  
Rob:  Now, I was looking at some national numbers.  In 2007, wind powered the equivalent of one point five million homes nationally.  And this year, it’s expected to reach four and a half million homes.
Stadler:  Yeah.  Last year, 2007 was the biggest installation year they’ve ever had.  And now that this technology is in more places and we have a feel for how things work, there are more financiers ready to finance; there are more energy companies willing to put some of their money and time into the wind, and so this is snowballing on itself.  So, it’s been a very good time for the wind industry for those folks.
Rob:  What is it going to take for us to grow from where we are right now?
Stadler:  Well, it’s going to take things like a little bit more technology.  The technology has come quantum leaps since the 1980s when it cost 38 cents per kilowatt hour to generate from the wind; and now with the changes in turbines, bigger turbines, better materials, computer controls, it’s now like three and a half cents per kilowatt hour.  And there’s been that kind of big change, and we’re looking for some changes in the technology in the future; U S Department of Energy is working on that, that’s one thing.  For Oklahoma to prosper, I think some of that technology is going to have to come off to somewhat smaller turbines that can be owned by people around the state, maybe cooperatively with each other, or whatever.  But a little bit of what we would call distributed power generation, instead of all the turbines in one place, they may be in various places, and then that way you don’t have to put in new infrastructure, in a lot of cases.  You don’t have to put in big transmission lines.
Rob:  And let me stop you there.  That is an important point, the transmission, the transmission capabilities.  Where are we there?
Stadler:  Absolutely.  Well, you can be generating all the wind power you could get out, if you don’t have the transmission to take it to market, you have nothing.  So, western Oklahoma is where the best wind is.  This is where the big wind turbines have gone.  And they’ve done well.  There has been enough, mainly enough capacity there to run things, but we are, I think, fast running out of transmission capability.  Because there are not very many people in western Oklahoma compared to eastern Oklahoma.  There’s not as much load to serve there traditionally.  So, when you all of a sudden start generating out there and try to bring the load back to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, then there’s sort of a road jam, it can be.  OG&E has announced that they want to build a big backbone line, all the way to the panhandle, eventually.  And, that’s sort of important, because our best wind is in far west Oklahoma, and there’s no transmission backbone line out there, right now, to bring it to us.  So, the transmission is something that’s being very, very closely looked at right now.  Our Southwest Power Pool which oversees our part of the country, Kansas and Oklahoma, and some other states, they’re doing a transmission study in Oklahoma in April to try to figure out what we really should be doing.  The point is to get more transmission line out in western Oklahoma, and then all sorts of projects can hook to that transmission.
Rob:  Well, thank you Steve.  Now, I continue my conversation with Dr. Stadler on our web site, just go to OkHorizon.com and click on value added.