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| Economy |
| New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs |
| 2010-02-10 |
| Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University's School of Communication in Washington, D.C. Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. But it does attract 3.5 cents/kWh taxpayer subsidies to the politically connected. That's more than the wholesale cost of nuke or coal generated electricity. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #7 Phil, I agree more or less with everything except the misspelling of my name. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-02-10 23:35 |
| #6 rjschwartz is right although it won't come from wind and solar. It will come from mini-nuke plants and in-home/building natural gas electricity generation. The latter being the most efficient way to distribute electricity and the waste heat can be used for heating. Otherwise, the green stimulus is just a subsidy to foreign manufacturers. Just like bio-fuels are subsidy to foreign consumers. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-10 20:26 |
| #5 The way to make windpower work is to build the windmills in cities. The germans have done this along the North Sea coast. Well not in cities so much but small towns have a windmill or two that satisfy their power needs. A city would be even better because the buildings tend to channel wind or a turbine could be put atop existing buildings. I imagine San Francisco and Chicago could be taken off the grid fairly easily with all that wind all the time. Same with solar in the Southwest. Put it on existing buildings, not in some big solar farm that takes up half the desert. The real problem is people think centralized power becuase they want control and union jobs. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-02-10 13:39 |
| #4 Well somebody's raking in a lotta "green" on them... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2010-02-10 13:01 |
| #3 "New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs" Of course not, silly. "Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power. . . . But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines" See, it's done what it was supposed to do - line the pockets of our "leaders'" buddies. What - you thought these clowns give a rat's ass about jobs for the little people? Silly you. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2010-02-10 12:47 |
| #2 Totally agree there LE5091. Its the Field of Dreams Theory. The problem is private investors tend to be smarter than the high risk-low return proposal, as you stated there are many projects which look great on paper but do not make the real world test. So to create this industry there needed to be a PR campaign to convince taxpayers that a 5% increase in their taxes justifies a 1% (bs numbers but you get the point) decrease in their energy bills. The environmentalists cannot justify it either; I am sure that somebody did a study of how much energy it takes to manufacture the parts, transport them to site, install, and hookup to the grid vs. energy created. Neither side can say with any conviction that these things pay off in a reasonable amount of time. Its not so different than buying a car, then finding out all you did was buy the transmission because you didn't read the fine print of the contract. And if it is to save the polar bears and such, how much is each polar bear worth now? I agree with Picken's sales pitch that each one of these turbines is less money going to the muddled east, but discounts the numerous other options available to go about that route. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-02-10 12:08 |
| #1 Although wind turbines have a few manufacturers in the midwest, many in use were imported and cannot stand up to the harsh winters in MN. Another problem is even though Pickens' plan has started construction through multiple rural states, there is no grid to connect the power to the cities in need. We need private investment and entrepeneurs to spark construction privately, not relying on the federal subsidies for everything. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2010-02-10 11:19 |