Wind Power Growth Up 39% Due To Stimulus Investment

While debates about the economy, unemployment and the effectiveness of the stimulus plan continue to rage throughout the country, their appears to be a bright spot for proponents of clean energy stimulus spending.

According to Whitehouse.gov, the release of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) 4th Quarter 2009 industry assessment(PDF) indicates that stimulus spending is directly responsible for turning a potential 50% decline in growth in the wind power sector into a 39% increase in growth in the country's fleet of wind plants in 2009 alone.

"The U.S. wind industry shattered all installation records in 2009, and this was directly attributable to the lifeline that was provided by the stimulus package," Denise Bode, the trade association's chief executive told The New York Times Deal Book Blog. "The second half of the year was extraordinary. But manufacturers didn't see much growth because they had built up so much inventory."

The White House also points out the environmental benefits to this economic growth: "America's wind power fleet will avoid an estimated 62 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to taking 10.5 million cars off the road. "

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) co-author of the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill, praised the results of the assessment: "In 2009, America's wind capacity grew by nearly 40 percent - blowing past the expectations that existed prior to the passage of the Recovery Act, These numbers show the potential for growth in clean energy, if only our country will make a commitment to these technologies."

The AWEA report also points out, however, that "The wind manufacturing sector has the potential to employ many more Americans in green jobs, but without a renewable electricity standard to provide a long-term market, the sector will be slow to grow."

Comments

[mineguy]

02:03 AM on 01/29/2010

Wind and solar aren't capable of making much of a difference in th national energy balance. They have a place, especially in remote areas where the cost of hydrocarbons are high, but always have the problem of not being flexible and able to peak when demand peaks or throttling back when demand is slack. They need battery storage.

If demand for these systems is up due to incentives, we should still understand the return on investment they provide. Without economic returns, they won't be self-sustaining.

Sure, let's use wind and solar where we can. Let's figure ways to expand the use of geothermal. Let's go back to nuclear. But in the meantime, there is plenty of natural gas and almost unlimited coal, which can be used cleanly, to bridge the period until we have major breakthroughs in fuel cell or fusion technology to truly be a game changer.

Solar and wind are useful on the edges, but they are not game changers.

[quillsinister]

06:33 AM on 01/29/2010

Coal cannot be used cleanly. Clean coal does not exist. It's a technology like warp drive is; pretty cool sounding, but nobody's gotten around to actually making it yet.

[maxwells]

01:56 PM on 01/29/2010

I agree that wind, solar, tide, integral fast reactors and population control are the interim solutions. Maybe in 50 years (non-self-replicating) photosynthetic nanotech will be the game changer.

However, Clean Coal is a Complete Crock - at best techno-difficult, cost prohibitive, doesn't address CO2 outgas from strip mine tailings.

RE: fusion. A wall chart in my engineering lecture hall showed how fusion would reach production levels (output energy = 100 times input) w/i 25 years. That was 30 years ago. While optimists predict another 25 years, they're still short of 1x the input power. Realistically, it may take 50 to 100 years, or maybe never.

[Van Grungy]

03:46 PM on 01/27/2010

At a meeting of the American Association of Anthropologists in December 1998, his new book was on display. Its significance will take time to digest. It concludes with a call for anthropologists to abandon pre-scientific, anti-evolutionary ideologies, and recognise the rapidly accumulating evidence of evolutionary biology.

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http://www.newsweekly.com.au/books/0813336937.html

How long will it take to fix this hoax Margaret Mead bought into and helped get started?

http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/29/1975-endangered-atmosphere-conference-where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/

ClimateAudit.org is the new Derek Freeman... Welcome to the Internet Age.

[yep yep]

03:04 PM on 01/27/2010

Interesting and pretty good news considering that projections were for a a flat line of wind farm projects for 2009.

[maxwells]

02:11 PM on 01/27/2010

"IF wind power was so great why does it need a government subsidy? This reminds me of subsidizing corn for ethanol production."

Good question. On the other hand, if fossil fuels are so great, why they do need subsidies that are more than 100 times bigger than the one for wind power?

Does it also remind you of the oil depletion tax credit? How about the fuel exploration and extraction tax subsidy? How about the liability limit subsidy for nuclear power plant accidents?

Here's from page 10 of briefing on federal subsidies just to produce electricity:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08102.pdf

"Tax expenditures largely go to fossil fuels: about $13.7 billion was provided to fossil fuels and $2.8 billion to renewables."

[Moneypolitics]

03:55 PM on 01/27/2010

Looking at page 21 I came up with

In millions:

Coal - .27 / Megawatt-Hour
Oil - .001 / Megawatt-Hour
NG - .006 / Megawatt-Hour

Nuclear - 1.58 / Megawatt - Hour

Biomass - 1.45 / Megawatt-Hour
Solar - 337.67 / Megawatt-Hour
Wind - 3.94 / Megawatt-Hour

As you can see while fossil fuels do receive subsidies it is nowhere near the level that renewables get.

[maxwells]

06:17 PM on 01/27/2010

Why should fossil fuels get ANY subsidy? Is it a developing technology that a wise nation would want to foster until it can compete on the world market? NO. We've been burning coal and oil for two centuries. We know how to do that pretty well by now.

Meanwhile, I'm sure you're a patriot. So, rather than nurse the rapid development of our own suite of energy sources, does it make more sense - is it smart geopolitics - to keep subsidizing our continued oil addiction, when most of it comes from places like the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, etc.? Those are friends?

[research]

03:21 PM on 01/29/2010

per KWH, not per industry!

and it doesn't include all the little breaks and deals they get, and have gotten for decades, worth trillions.

[quillsinister]

05:56 PM on 01/27/2010

Thank you, Max. I was too lazy to go look those up myself.

Don't forget that we also fight preemptive wars on borrowed money for oil.

:-)

[heathcoat57]

01:25 PM on 01/27/2010

Next to my name, I am missing " I am a fan of " How do I get that phrase to appear next to my name? Thank you for any help.

[Virgil Kane]

01:12 PM on 01/27/2010

IF wind power was so great why does it need a government subsidy? This reminds me of subsidizing corn for ethanol production.

[HarlowGal1960]

09:33 AM on 01/27/2010

now i just need a generator for the top of the hill in my backyard!!

[PlayTOE]

05:45 AM on 01/27/2010

a 39% increase in growth in the country's fleet of wind plants in 2009 alone.

The USA has a long way to go in Wind Energy, but the 39% increase is a nice start.
Compare this to China's wind industry which has DOUBLED in size each year for the past eight, and looks to have the trend continue.

[Cheshiremoe]

09:12 AM on 01/27/2010

China is getting 80% of its energy from coal and while the are doubling wind power there growth in power consumption is outstripping the new wind power.

[urchinsadrift]

11:20 PM on 01/26/2010

I like wind turbines. I think they are cool. I liked the old windmills that pumped water on thousands of farms for 100 years. But there is growth in thos industry because the barry admin is throwing your tax dollars at it. I want to see growth in wind energy without subsidy. It should be able to be self supporting.

[jsarets]

02:37 AM on 01/27/2010

And I'd like to see the fossil fuel industries pay for the environmental and health care costs externalized to other businesses, individuals, and the government.

It's not a free market if certain costs are externalized any more than it is if certain businesses are subsidized. By and large, subsidies are political responses to other subsidies that are already deeply entrenched in the political establishment.

As for the biggest subsidy of them all, we don't have the most expensive military the world has ever known because of wind or any other low-carbon energy source. It's there, in part, to protect our petroleum interests and those of our foreign allies.

[quillsinister]

05:52 AM on 01/27/2010

Exactly! Here people are howling about any and all federal money being used to install wind and solar infrastructure as some kind of blasphemy against the holy market, when we've been fighting wars for oil for how long now?

A market needs accurate information if it is going to make intelligent decisions, but we have literally lobotomized ours by going to such great lengths to keep cheap gas flowing. The day Americans have to face the true price of oil, to include that wounded Marine in the VA hospital and the meat production which sucks up more than half of our oil consumption, is the day they might have an incentive to conserve and support alternatives. But nooo, they need to be kept in the dark like the good little consumer lemmings they are.

[mamacat]

04:43 AM on 01/27/2010

The Railroads in the 19th century, the nuclear industry, the highways and the hydroelectric dams in the twentieth century - they all got help at the beginning. It is the way things are done. Find a worthy program, and fund it. Where would we be now without the above mentioned programs? Even the largely unpopular nuclear industry provides fully 20% of America's electrical generation, and it could not exist without government support.

The trillion-plus dollars that we spend every single year on the military industrial complex has a huge amount of waste in it. The Cold War is over, and we do not need to act as if it is our duty to occupy the whole world.

[sethdayal]

09:20 PM on 01/26/2010

Latest Chinese build Texas wind farm - 56 sq miles of concrete, roads and steel, $1.5 billion. 125 Mw(avg), excluding storage, transmission, and millions annually for load balancing natural gas. $12B/Gw.

Westinghouse recently sold China 4.8 Gw of nukes for $5.5B. for 2013 service. $1.2B/Gw

Replacing windmills and their associated fast spooling low efficiency load balancing gas plants with high efficiency slow spooling gas plant, actually produces less green house gases at a lower cost. Money spent on wind turbines is completely wasted.

Germany has already wasted 10 years and $100B on solar/wind and has not reduced its greenhouse emissions one iota. It is planning a massive build of dirty coal plants to meet its baseload power requirements.

A worldwide investment in 10000 new mass produced nuclear reactors would be paid for by and would end fossil fuel use, eliminate most air pollution saving millions of lives, end the global warming/peak oil problem with a 100% elimination of GHG's within a ten year time frame, is a great job producing economy boosting investment, requires only a small part of our industrial capacity, and pays for itself in less than three years.

Reasoning Democrats, all Republicans and Deniers will go along with some sort of a nuclear plan. Its politically and financially doable.

The extremely costly renewable option by delaying solution indefinitely kills a million people every year from toxic coal emissions and eventually drags us over that civilization ending climate/peak oil precipice.

[Moneypolitics]

09:46 PM on 01/26/2010

You have sources to show for the millions of lives that coal has killed in the United States?

[sethdayal]

10:08 PM on 01/26/2010

WHO estimates 1 miilion deaths world wide annually from inhaling radioactive toxic coal emissions. Other estimates range as high as 3 million. Hundreds of millions again worldwide are sickened from the same emissions.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

[dolphy]

10:26 PM on 01/26/2010

If you can find someone to insure your nuke without government money, and find a way to store nuke waste for the lifetime of the waste, then go for it.

[sethdayal]

10:50 PM on 01/26/2010

The Grand Coulee dam oddly has no insurance either. Course neither do any US Navy nuclear armed nuclear powered vessels. Without legislation American attorneys would be suing nuclear plants if an employee spilled his coffee -a low level nuclear spill. And with American juries they' d win.

Rather than wasting time and treasure on wind and solar, Obama, needs to allocate $3B to build an Idaho National Laboratory designed prototype tested commercial Gen IV IFR. IFR's at $1B/Gw could supply all the world's power for hundreds of years on existing nuclear waste. The tiny amount of low level waste from IFR's is save enough to put back in the mine. Google Kirsch 221796 for details.

Similar to the IFR, the $.005/Kwh LFTR reactor is also getting no funding from the Obama. India is pursuing the technology. Google Wired Thorium to get details.

Obama seems bound and determined to destroy the Democrats in the 2010 election cycle with this foolish fixation on renewables. The American people are damn sick of people with law degrees wasting money on renewable fairie dust and the Republicans are going to have them for lunch on this issue. I hope he sees the light before it's too late.

Check out Steve Kircsh's latest blog for more on this one.

[quillsinister]

09:15 PM on 01/26/2010

Hey, maybe we can put wind turbines on top of all the mountains that have had their tops blown off to get at coal! I know some people dig the blasted wasteland look, but it just seems so lonely up there these days.

[Moneypolitics]

09:36 PM on 01/26/2010

The percentage of coal that is from mountain top removal is minuscule. The rest of coal mining is either underground, or surface mines that after reclamation is completed you cannot tell that mining ever occurred.

[quillsinister]

05:25 AM on 01/27/2010

I'll need to see numbers on that. I've heard otherwise.

But the fact that anyone anywhere ever thought that doing it at all was a good idea is itself a sign of how insane our country has gotten. It shouldn't be done.

And I also have yet to see that reclaimation of these sites is even possible.

[PlayTOE]

05:58 AM on 01/27/2010

You might want to look at the "minuscule" mountain top removal areas on Google Earth. The environmental damage is horrific and extensive.

[urchinsadrift]

11:21 PM on 01/26/2010

Great idea. Good places for new nuke plants too. And maybe solar arrays.

[guinganbresil]

09:14 PM on 01/26/2010

I noticed that the article didn't mention the payback time - perhaps it is just a passe capitalist concept...

I saw an article on a solar plant dedicated by President Obama:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/27/obama-tours-solar-array-a_n_208162.html

It cost 100 million dollars and will save the Air Force a million dollars a year...

100 year payback... If it lasts that long... Brilliant!

[quillsinister]

09:11 PM on 01/26/2010

Hooray for wind! C'mon, people. It's domestically produced, clean, renewable energy. Nobody even had to fight a war for it. There is no bad there.

And I've always found them to be rather lovely, all white and spinny like that. One more crop from the fields. There were some near where I was stationed last, and they were a huge boost for a pretty undeveloped part of the world. And the people there were thankful to have a local energy source with such an insignificant footprint. It was an islan, you see, so getting anything from the mainland was an issue.

And now I get back to America to hear what seems like an endless screed against horrible, clean, quiet, wind power. Oh, heavens! Whatever shall we do without the mercury poisoning and pillars of black smoke that made coal plants so sweet and wonderful? We fear change and cling to outmoded tech that slowly kills us! Let us cower in caves and huddle around coal fires where we'll be safe from nasssty wind and sunlight! O woe!

;-)

[Moneypolitics]

09:41 PM on 01/26/2010

Pillars of black smoke? I guess you have never lived near a coal fired power plant.

Insignificant footprint is also a misnomer when it comes to wind farms. The amount of land that a wind farm, is not insignificant.

Also what do you do with http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/gifs/map2-1.gif

The large parts of America that wind power is not even feasible.

[quillsinister]

05:21 AM on 01/27/2010

I guess it's white smoke these days. I was remembering tinkering with a coal forge. No matter the color, it still poisons us.

And wind farms can be just about anywhere, including land already being used for something else. I've seen them placed in existing cropland, as well as in land unusable to people. And yes, their footprint is tiny when compared to just about anything else.

What to do with the land where wind can't work? Why, do something else, of course! The energy of the future must come from many sources. Silver bullets usually don't exist.

It still makes me laugh that your argument is based on the idea of wasting energy that could be easily collected. You're essentially a person who needs water, but won't catch rainwater because you think the bucket will be an inconvenience.

[maxwells]

01:13 PM on 01/28/2010

The biggest problem with coal isn't the power plant. It's strip mining because it unearths far more shale and mudstone than coal. Those leavings are up to 50% carbon. Letting them oxidize openly emits far more CO2 than burning the obtained coal.

That's one reason why carbon sequestration is a joke. Even if it were technically feasible, which no one has shown, it would address less than half the CO2 emissions from current coal processing.

Re-bury all leavings deep under pressure? Sure thing. Force-feed that idea to the Chinese and that coal company CEO fool, who likes to shave mountains.

BTW, I bothered to do the calc from specs supplied by the most promising of those algal CO2 processing start-ups. Nice idea, but it would mean square miles of actively filtered and fed, meter-deep algae ponds surrounding each coal-fired power plant - doable, but inelegant.

[urchinsadrift]

01:50 PM on 01/28/2010

Grow more plants.

[Moneypolitics]

10:31 PM on 01/28/2010

You got any numbers or studies that show the shale and mudstone emitting large amounts CO2 when it oxidizes.

Also strip mines are reclaimed, so the shale and mudstone will be exposed for at most 10 years? Most mines will have reclaimed those areas probably within 5.

[max hp]

08:19 PM on 01/26/2010

It's time to invest in MagLev or HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORK.

[Nuyorican21]

09:15 PM on 01/26/2010

Yes please.

[urchinsadrift]

11:24 PM on 01/26/2010

Did you ever wonder why the govt has not adjusted amtrak routes to connect with AIRPORTS? now consider why no one wants to incorporate rail travel into their travel plans....

[quillsinister]

05:37 AM on 01/27/2010

Because oil lobbyists have influenced politicians for about a century now to craft a nation that was utterly dependent on their product.

They have gone so far as to push for privatization of public transportation in major cities, then buy it and shut it down so people would have no choice but to drive their cars everywhere. They did that in Los Angeles back in the 1920s, IIRC.

By contrast, I lived in Japan for two years and never felt compelled to own a car. The public transportation there was outstanding, as it was in Europe when I lived there.

[PrairieView]

07:47 PM on 01/26/2010

Obama is spending $30B just for 30,000 more troops for a year in Afghanistan. That would have bought a lot of windmills, reduced some CO2 emissions, put people to work, and reduced use of fossil fuels. We need a green president in 2012.

[Givethemhellharry]

05:03 AM on 01/27/2010

Yeah it would have put 30,000 troops out of work. He didn't want to raise the unemployment any higher so he sent them into the killing zone instead. Ain't he wonderful! All hail the Chief!