Gregg Heide of the Iowa Farmers Union explains whether he’s been able to harness wind power within the state and whether he can fully expand this process.

MSNBC TRANSCRIPT:

>> clear that washington simply is not willing to tackle this crisis. at least it hasn’t been for decades. that’s why we have convened this energy summit, to bring together people with different ideas with the same ultimate agenda, to free america from our dependence on foreign oil and specifically mideast oil. of course with boone pickens, he’s an advocate of natural gas, but then he’s also an advocate of wind. he will work above the earth and below it. our next guest is a huge advocate of wind and solar, what he calls his state’s next cash crops. greg hyde is vice president of the iowa farmers union. you think of these guys as corn growers. well, greg would have you think of them as wind growers. what exactly are you pushing for here, greg?

>> moving our state’s farmers more into the ownership side of this business. right now we primarily participate in wind energy by leasing our farms to our big utilities in the state, midamerican energy is leading in wind and our own chance to participate in the wind industry is to lease land to them. so i’ve always been an advocate of moving farmers into the ownership and retaining more profits in the local economies and moving us into a cash crop and diversifying agriculture.

>> before we get too much further into that, and i do want to get into that, back up a little bit and give us a sense of just how abundant the wind resource is.

>> well, i think we’re one of the top ten states for wind resource in iowa here in the united states. and we’ve got a lot of wind resource, but we’re putting a relatively small amount to use presently.

>> you say the reason we’re putting it to use because the pricing doesn’t work, is that right?

>> it’s hard to finance it right now. but that time will come. in the study that was done by the department of energy april of ’07, it shows clearly from sweetwater, texas, right across iowa to the canadian border, you could put in there 200,000 megawatts of power. i mean you have the wind. but it’s going to cost you a little more. if you look at the costs a kilowatt hour, the most expensive of anything is solar, and that’s $6300 a kilowatt hour. $5300 for nuclear, $5,000 for coal because it’s getting very expensive to clean it up. then you drop to $2400 a kilowatt hour is wind and $ 1500 is natural gas.

>> so you took the two cheapest plays on the board.

>> exactly. i’m a cheap guy.

>> greg, how would you envision this? you talk about wanting to own the resource on the farm yourself as opposed to leagues the land. it’s as if instead of growing corn, you’re growing windmills. what’s the barrier to doing something like that?

>> well, i would agree with mr. pickens. it comes right down to price. and, you know, when our biggest utility in the state decided they liked wind energy, they wanted a guaranteed rate of return for their wind energy so they went to the legislature and did that. independents can’t get it, so now we’ve got our biggest utility company owned by warren buffett who got a guaranteed return on his wind energy and that utility only offers a price out to somebody like me for two cents. so they basically cornered the market through the legislative process. if i lived in germany, i would have the exact same pricing opportunity as mr. buffett. i would be able to get a guaranteed rate of return for my wind energy and that would be cushioned to have a reasonable rate of return so that i don’t injure a ratepayer. and drive the customers’ costs up. but independents like myself don’t get to operate under that scenario in the states.

>> is there a way to level the playing field so that guys like him can sell electricity?

>> i don’t know what kind of deal that warren made, i’m not familiar with the iowa situation. i know this, greg, that you and i both are going to get a chance to make money in the wind at some point, and it’s not going to be too far out. i’d say you’re going to have $6 gas within two or three years.

>> that’s a prognostication right there. i think we might be lucky at $6.

>> natural gas is so cheap.

>> we’re over at the filling station earlier today, we’re going to do this a little later in the show, less than $2 a gallon. good to see you. greg, thank