[Vision2020] Wall Street Journal: US Fails To Supply Windmill Technology

[Paul Rumelhart]

This is exactly what's been missing: demand.  Sure, some European 
companies will make a mint as the suppliers race to beef up their 
factories and whatnot.  In the end, some entrepreneur will arrive who 
will provide what's needed here in the US at the appropriate rate and 
will have the advantage of a smaller distance to ship components, and 
lower shipping costs.

You'll never get this particular incarnation of government to mandate 
green power.  The nice thing is that wind power is becoming economical 
on it's own.  That should mean a great surge in wind power plants in the 
coming years.  Wind power may be more costly right now on a penny per 
kilowatt basis, but you're not going to run out of wind and be left high 
and dry like you will someday with coal, even if that's a couple of 
hundred years away.  Everybody complains about having a wind turbine in 
their back yard, but is it so much worse than a polluting coal plant?  
As the technology progresses wind power plants will get quieter, safer, 
and more efficient.  I just read a few days ago about a proposal to make 
off-shore wind power generators that float in the ocean and are tethered 
to the sea floor.  If the equations are working out well enough to make 
that kind of thing feasible, then we are well on our way.

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:
> All-
>  
> In today's Wall Street Journal, front page, an article claims US 
> demand for wind energy technology is not being met domestically, 
> resulting in a slow down of implementation, offering an economic 
> opportunity for European corporations to supply the technology, and 
> own the US wind farms, that can answer the US demand:
>  
> From the article:
>
> "In recent years, improved technology has made it possible to build 
> bigger, more efficient windmills. That, combined with surging 
> political support for renewable energy, has driven up demand. Now, 
> makers can't keep up -- mostly because they can't get the parts they 
> need fast enough.
>
> "Numerous wind-power projects from Virginia to California have been 
> stalled due to the shortage. But for some renewable-energy companies 
> in Europe, where wind power has been in vogue for almost two decades, 
> the logjam is a lucrative opportunity. These firms anticipated a 
> shortage of turbines and locked in orders with makers. They're now 
> using their considerable buying power to gobble up smaller utilities 
> in the U.S. that couldn't otherwise get their hands on turbines."
>
> ------
>
> So in brief, in the richest nation on Earth, the shining example of 
> the miracle of the marketplace to ensure the latest and best 
> technology to benefit the public will receive investment and 
> implementation, "socialist" Europe is ahead of the US in supplying 
> wind power technology, with European companies making long term 
> investments in owning US wind energy, that could instead be made by US 
> domestic businesses. Why?
>  
> From the article:
>
> "In the U.S., there's another potential threat to growth -- erratic 
> government support for wind power. Even though wind power has made 
> technical strides recently, energy firms still rely on subsidies 
> because it costs more to generate electricity with wind turbines than 
> other power plants such as coal, natural gas or nuclear. Wind power 
> requires intensive capital investment in a short period of time, and 
> has added costs like upgrading transmission systems. According to the 
> International Energy Agency in Paris, wind farms cost between four and 
> 14 cents to generate a kilowatt hour; coal-fired plants cost between 
> 2.5 and six cents."
>
> "Some 20 states now have price supports for wind-generated 
> electricity, and there is a federal tax credit to encourage new 
> wind-park development. But there is no federal requirement for 
> utilities to buy green energy, as there is in the United Kingdom, 
> Denmark and Germany. And the tax credit, started in 1992, depends on a 
> biannual congressional approval. An effort to introduce federal 
> support for wind power was shot down this month in the Senate."
>
> "The lack of a stable, long-term regulatory environment has created a 
> wind-power roller coaster. Developers were never sure their projects 
> would make economic sense a few years down the road if the regulatory 
> climate changed. Foreign turbine manufacturers were reluctant to build 
> factories in the U.S. Vestas scrapped plans for a U.S. factory three 
> times because of uncertainty. This spring, it announced it would build 
> a turbine plant in Windsor, Colo.
>
> -----------
>
> This link appears to bypass the "subscription required" option for the 
> whole article:
>  
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html
>  
> If this fails, here is the subscription required link:
>  
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one
>  
> Here is discussion of the article from "public radio:"
>  
> http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/07/09/AM200707094.html
>  
> ---------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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