Arkansas Sees Surge in Renewable Energy Projects Despite Opposition

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It’s no secret that Donald Trump hates “disgusting” wind energy and “ridiculous” large solar arrays.

But even as his new administration takes aim at renewable power and adopts a “drill, baby, drill” approach to fossil fuels, new wind and solar projects are taking root in Arkansas.

Tech giants Microsoft and Meta recently confirmed plans to reap the carbon neutrality benefits of new solar projects in Arkansas. And an unnamed tech leader will purchase the environmental benefits of Treaty Oak Clean Energy’s 100-megawatt solar array under construction in Grant County.

Wind turbines now soar hundreds of feet over Cross County, where the Crossover Wind project is stunning motorists and creating buzz for its owner, Cordelio Power of Toronto.

Other wind projects are taking shape near Marion in Crittenden County (Long Grain Wind) and near Greenwood in the Ozarks of Carroll County (Nimbus).

All that wind flies in the face of the president’s recent remarks on Fox News.

“We don’t want windmills in this country,” the president said. “The wind blows and then it doesn’t blow, the things cost a fortune, they are made in China, they kill the birds, they’re horrible.”

Trump wasn’t much kinder to solar power, the fastest-growing electricity generation source in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“You know what people also don’t like, those massive solar fields built over land that cover 10 miles by 10 miles,” Trump said. “I mean they are ridiculous, the whole thing.”

Those sentiments didn’t impede progress on the solar fields or the Cross County project, which features more than two dozen turbines with a hub height of 430 feet. The distance from the ground to a blade tip pointed straight up is nearly 700 feet. Those blades aren’t turning yet. The 135-megawatt wind farm expects to go online sometime this summer.

“The Crossover Wind project alone will contribute $450,000 annually to Cross County’s general fund, supporting schools, infrastructure, and essential services without raising local taxes,” according to Julia Pendleton and Whit Cox, who are advocating for wind farms as they fall under scrutiny by the General Assembly.

Cox is regulatory director for the Southern Renewable Energy Association and former lawyer for the Arkansas Public Service Commission. Pendleton leads the nonprofit Southeastern Wind Coalition.

They argue that farmers hosting a wind turbine can reap upwards of $20,000 a year, and go right on planting and harvesting around the behemoths.

But state Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, said in a December legislative hearing that policies promoting green energy could threaten the nation. “I think it’s a liberal policy, and … it’s just a plan to destroy this country and take over this country. I’m hoping that this new administration — and I think they will — will put a stop to some of this insanity with green energy.”

Last month, a bill that would have limited the height of wind turbines to 150 feet in the path of bird migrations failed to advance out of a legislative committee.

Cordelio developed Crossover Wind in partnership with Steelhead Americas, a subsidiary of Vestas of Aarhus, Denmark. Aarhus is the world’s largest wind turbine maker and service provider.

Construction of the Long Grain Wind project could still be a few years away.

The Nimbus project has met with some opposition in Carroll County, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Arkansas Ecological Services Field Office launched a website in October to keep residents updated on it.