Ski resorts toeing green's bottom line

HANCOCK, Mass. -- Brian Fairbank had tried just about everything to cut the costs of running his Jiminy Peak ski resort: he used recycled motor oil to heat its mountain operations center, developed more efficient snow guns, captured heat generated by snowmaking machines, even installed waterless toilets.

Still his annual electric bill hit $635,000.

So Fairbank decided to do what no ski resort owner had done: install a giant windmill to make his own power.

Other ski resorts, smarting from criticism over soaring energy and water use as well as their impact on fragile ecosystems, are now watching Jiminy's 386-foot, $3.9 million turbine to see if it might work elsewhere.

The ski industry has pushed to redefine its image, with resorts switching to more environmentally friendly power and buying renewable energy credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

The industry is trying to turn profits while confronting the prospects of snow retreating to higher altitudes, later snowfalls and earlier snow melts.

In 2006, Vail Resorts took the lead by purchasing nearly 152,000 megawatt hours of wind energy credits to offset all of its annual power consumption at its five ski areas and other businesses, making it one of the largest corporate users in the nation.

At British Columbia's Whistler Blackcomb resort, construction is expected to end in November on a $32 million hydro electric power project that will offset the annual energy consumption at the ski area. The Fitzsimmons Creek Hydro Project will produce 33.5 gigawatt hours of electricity a year, enough to send the facility into greenhouse gas production deficit, said Arthur De Jong, mountain planning manager.

At Jiminy Peak, the wind turbine, nicknamed Zephyr after the Greek god of the west wind, has become a tourist attraction at southern New England's largest ski resort.

It also cut Fairbank's electricity costs by $200,000 last year — the first full year the turbine was operational.

"The wind turbine came about because we had done all these things and there was no more low-hanging fruit," said Fairbank, who has run the resort for three decades. "We now make twice the amount of snow, with half the amount of money that we did 15 years ago."