A recent article in the Washington Post pretty much says it all. Originally formed in the 30's to serve rural farmers, REA's today often serve high density housing as well as advanced industrial areas. In Colorado, as allowed by State Statutes, they also often engage in side, for-profit, businesses. Funding, historically, has been provided under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Utility Services branch.

If you have read the previous pages on energy technologies to come, you might agree that solutions to the current environmental mess involves high technology and money, lots of it. That's my feeling and I see neither in the REA organizations. The do-nothing Federal Government has been a disaster in the area of energy. Many if not all would agree that the U.S. is currently in a very vulnerable and dangerous position relative to energy. Rural areas, with their current large dependence on fossil fuels, are purhaps at greatest peril to energy shortfalls or price increases.

The poster child of investor owned utilities is, of course, Enron Corporation. It doesn't take a lot of investigation on the Internet to show that the Enron mind set is alive and well in other investor owned utilities. Where there is little or no utility regulation, prices are nearly always higher than under regulation. REA's are neither regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) nor State level regulatory bodies to any great degree. Member rates are currently increasing in the range of 8 to 11% per year. There is little oversite or accountability tied to these increases in my view.

REA State level organizations are headed up by the Colorado Rural Electric Association. At the National level, Touchstone Energy is the organization that represents all REA organizations everywhere. Public Power organizations are not REA's. These groups are typically sponsored by municipal (city) organizations that want their energy (and telecommunication services?) supplied internally. The American Publi Power Association (APPA) is the National level organization that represents Public Power in Washington. The APPA organization appears to be quite a bit more politically active than the REA sites. The APPA site also contains considerably more information than any REA site I've visited. It's interesting to note that the Colorado Springs Utilities organization (APPA member) had no electric rate increases for 2008 but are planning increases for 2009. Their combined electric & gas rates for 2007 were listed as 2nd lowest in the state.

The closest thing I've found to a national technical support group is the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Cooperative Research Network. This site includes Distributed Geneartion (DG) genaral information and tool kits. Overall, the site is less than inspiring to this writer.

Please continue to next page - - Wind -- REA -- Dmea

• Sunflower Update
• REA's Today
• USDA-Rural Utilities
• FERC
• Colorado PUC
• Colorado Rural Electric Association
• American Public Power Association
• REA Distributed Generation
• Distributed Generation Tool Kits
• National Rural Telecommunications