Paper mills expand use of wind power

The Cohoes-based company said a contract took effect June 1 that increased its wind-generated electricity usage to 45 million kilowatt hours annually.

Wind energy - which will be purchased from its power suppliers - will account for 21 percent of the power for the company's two paper mills in New York, and half the annual power required for its mill in Beckett, Ohio.

"There is a misconception that choosing the environmentally correct path costs a lot more," said George Milner, Mohawk's senior vice president for energy, environmental and governmental affairs. "But with the technological advances in windmills, the cost of wind power is within the range of traditional energy sources."

Commercial and residential consumers can specify to power suppliers that a portion of the energy they buy come from renewable resources.

Mohawk said it first purchased a turbine's worth of wind power last year for its plant in Cohoes, then increased the usage to two and a half turbines' worth earlier this year. In April, when Mohawk announced the purchase of the Fine Papers group from International Paper Co., it negotiated a contract to provide wind power to the Ohio mill that came with the acquisition.

Mohawk is using the alternative energy to market its papers as environmentally friendly. It said The Sierra Club bought paper to use as packaging for a DVD in part because the paper was made at a wind-powered mill.