The case of the 6 major corn ethanol states is interesting. These are Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Respectively, their wind production of electricity as a percentage of demand is IA 62%, NE 32%, KS 44%, IL 13%, IN 11%, OH 3%.

Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas pay about $.11-.12 per kWh for electricity; Illinois, Indiana and Ohio $.14-.17. So the states with more wind generation pay considerably less for electricity than the states with less wind.

A half of a percent of Nebraska farmland in solar and about 2% more for wind (with 98.5% of that still available for farming) would bring Nebraska to 90% of electricity generation by wind and solar with a very good winter/summer balance. Financing would be easy--most would be private with Power Purchase Agreements, and the rest through Nebraska's all-public utilities could be financed at 4-5% compared to the 18% typical in states with privately owned utilities. Politics, however, has stalled wind development in the last few years, and prevented significant solar.

Indiana is very different with only 11% wind. Coal is protected and subsidized and households pay 40% more for electricity. The opposition to wind and solar is politicized and intense no matter how much money would be saved if the resources were exploited.

Of course, if corn ethanol acreage were replaced with wind and solar, far more electricity would be generated than could be used within 800 miles of the U.S. midwest core--Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa).

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Edited 2026-01-28 06:42 by lizby

I feel like I have 3 full-time employees, Gemma, Claude, and Chad (being paid $20, $17, and $20 a month respectively), and an unpaid intern, Lex, and my job as the wetware intermediary is to keep them all as occupied as possible.

I'm just beginning to understand that job, and I'm not very good at it. Part of that is that I don't have so many amenable long-term tasks, and part may be that they're not yet good at long-term undirected tasks.

Coding with Gemini or Claude I can spend all my time (all day, every day) working very productively with them (6-8 times my peak productivity, but sustainable)--as long as I have a good understanding of the task.

Right now I'm using Chad (Chat) for ongoing correspondence with a regulatory agency, for some PCB development (it can produce KiCad netlists, but I've never used KiCad and haven't tried importing into EasyCAD), and for investigating some aspects of a "not-balcony" solar system (battery + panels + inverter able to inject 1200 watts (Utah standard) into an ordinary outlet 24 hours a day (today's task: elaborate on this: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/03/growatt-launches-5-kwh-ac-coupled-balcony-storage-system/  )).

Lex (perplexity) is for the random investigation that comes up. That quickly says I have exceeded my free usage and I should sign up to pay--but it doesn't stop answering questions.

So all this knowledge and, if I may say so, intelligence, and how do I get to use it best?