Missouri residents will get to vote on the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative in November.

Voters’ minds already deciding between red and blue entrees in a buffet of political races now have a green side dish to mull over this November.

Missouri ballots will serve up the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative, which a Spanish-based company building a wind farm near Tarkio, Mo., backed with some green of its own.

The measure would require renewable energy sources to make up at least 15 percent of the electricity supply that investor-owned utility companies buy or generate by 2021, upon voter approval.

At least 2 percent of it would have to be solar energy, while other sources include wind, biomass and hydropower.

A possible increase in demand for wind energy could spell good news for Northwest Missouri wind mill towns such as Rock Port or King City, which may serve as the site of a second wind farm.

Iberdrola Renewables, which announced its first Missouri project in Tarkio last week, saw the initiative’s potential and sent a $25,000 check of support to fund the signature-gathering efforts, said Jan Johnson, company spokeswoman.

Twenty-six states plus Washington, D.C., have adopted renewable electricity standards.

Missourians for Cleaner Cheaper Energy, which gathered the necessary signatures that a Cole County judge just deemed valid, claims the initiative by 2022 would have the same effect as removing 2 million cars from the road.

But Rep. Jim Guest, a King City Republican running for re-election, is resisting the “unfunded” effort.

“I obviously support clean energy sources, but I have trouble with a mandate,” he said. “How do they know it will be feasible for the power companies?”

The ballot language restricts any consumer rate increases to 1 percent as a result of meeting the cleaner requirements. State and local governmental entities may have to incur any indirect costs associated with the initiative, the question states. The estimated direct cost to the state is $395,183.

“We should let the marketplace dictate it, which it is doing now,” Mr. Guest said. “We’re putting wind farms in Missouri here without a mandate. And we have more on the drawing board without that.”

KCP&L, a combined company with Aquila Inc., reports that slightly more than 2 percent of its retail electric sales come from renewable energy as defined under the ballot initiative, said Chuck Caisley, senior director of public affairs. The company already would be in compliance with a 2 percent mandate by the initiative’s pre-deadline of 2011.

That’s still 13 percent more to go, which Mr. Caisley described as “a stretch goal for us … This would probably require spending more than 1 percent.”

KCP&L interprets the ballot language to read that the mandate goes away if costs exceed that 1 percent, one of the main reasons the utility is willing to support the standard, he said.

“On the surface, it seems like a win-win situation if rates can be held stable,” said Mike Waltemath, a King City Democrat challenging Mr. Guest in the November election.

Mr. Waltemath was one of the first King City farmers to take part in a land-lease program with Wind Capital Group.

“To get some things started ... sometimes they need a little push,” Mr. Waltemath said. “If the government steps in and sets some guidelines to get the ball rolling, I’m fine with that.”

Alyson E. Raletz can be reached at alysonraletz@npgco.com.