|
|
|
Jewish World Review Sept. 14, 2005 / 10 Elul, 5765 Let's keep the renewable energy industry local — there's gold in them thar' (wind m)ills By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
They're putting up another wind farm near Walla Walla, in
Washington state. The towers are coming from Korea, Vietnam and Canada. The
turbines, blades and other parts were made in Denmark.
What are Americans doing? They're taking the stuff other people
make off of boats and trucking them to the wind farm. Americans might have
been manufacturing these windmills, were their national leaders not so
wrapped up in the needs of oilmen.
These are gold-rush days for renewable energy manufacturing, but
Washington has done little to keep it on American soil. Our lawmakers are
blind to the possibilities. Worse, when it comes to policy, they're kings of
chaos.
Vestas Wind Technology, the giant Danish maker of wind turbines,
considered building a plant in southwestern Washington, or across the border
in Portland, Ore. But Congress failed to extend a tax credit for
wind-generated power, and Vestas dropped the idea. Its plant would have made
the region a center for renewable energy. It could have created 1,000
good-paying jobs. Would have, could have.
The tax credit has already expired three times. The recent
energy bill revived it, but for a lousy two years. Without consistent
policy, manufacturers won't risk pouring millions into new U.S. plants.
General Electric is an American company that has become a major player in
wind-power technology, but it does much of this manufacturing in Germany.
"Would you want to sell into a market that is a $3 billion
market one year and a half billion market the next year?" asks Randall
Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.
Europe and Japan offer generous tax subsidies for renewable
energy. This has created enormous markets within their borders and factories
eager to supply them.
United Solar Ovonic, near Detroit, makes flexible solar panels.
It has a six-month backlog for orders and has just broken ground for a
second plant. But most of the company's sales are overseas, with 45 percent
going to Germany alone.
Uni-Solar's panels use photovoltaic technology, which converts
sunlight into electricity. The global market for such devices is growing
about 40 percent a year.
"Worldwide, the biggest user of photovoltaics is Germany, then
Japan," says Subhendu Guha, Uni-Solar president. "We are way below."
The reason is that these other countries offer bigger subsidies.
America's 30 percent federal tax credit for installing solar equipment is
nice, but nowhere near the support available elsewhere.
Prices for solar products have jumped in countries with high
demand for them. That has created a shortage in this country. At the recent
Southwest Sustainability Expo in Flagstaff, Ariz., American buyers
complained that solar panels were hard to find because U.S. makers preferred
exporting their products. The result is that some American consumers can't
move off of oil, even when they want to. Imagine the solar-energy industry
we could have here in the United States, if Washington got its act together.
The capacity to generate wind power in the United States has
been increasing an average 25 percent a year since 2000 — despite the
on-again, off-again nature of the tax credit. But the graph of growth looks
like a roller coaster.
"Each time the credit expired, hundreds of jobs were lost,"
Swisher says. "All of those jobs are going to Denmark, Germany and other
places where they have more consistent and stable policies. Policy drives
investment."
I order my conservative friends, now wagging their fingers at
the idea of subsidies for renewable energy, to take another look at the
recent energy bill. Of the $14.5 billion in tax breaks to energy producers,
about $9 billion goes for oil, gas and coal — and at a time of soaring oil
profits. A mere $3 billion was set aside for incentives to produce
electricity from renewable sources. Members of Congress who did fight for
the renewable energy tax credit told the industry that, given Washington's
mania over fossil fuels, it was lucky to get what little it did.
The point is that renewable energy is not some environmental
fad. There's gold in those windmills. If the threats of surging oil prices
and global warming don't get through the thick skulls in Congress, perhaps
the prospect of Americans making serious money through these emerging
technologies will.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
