According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. government is sending $1.8 billion in stimulus money to overseas wind energy companies. Taxpayers ought to be furious at this revelation -- I certainly am.
That money should be spent to create good jobs in America. I don't care what excuse the Chamber of Commerce comes up with. It's just wrong to spend U.S. tax dollars on clean energy technology from companies in Japan, Denmark and Germany.
Don't get me wrong. My union strongly supports government help for renewable energy projects. We need to restore America's economic leadership, and we can do it by investing in clean energy technology at home. Wind turbines are an ideal technology to promote because they require hundreds of skilled workers to manufacture. There is a big opportunity for the creation of thousands of good jobs -- right here at home.
But China, Denmark and Spain are eating our lunch when it comes to manufacturing wind turbines. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that China has leapfrogged ahead of the United States in green technology investment. In 2004, China had spent only $2.5 billion on renewable energy technologies. Last year, China spent $34.6 billion -- almost twice what the U.S. spent.
Sending money to overseas wind energy companies is like sending money to Soviet aerospace companies after Sputnik was launched.
The Investigative Reporting Workshop recently examined Energy Department data and found that 79 percent of $2 billion in federal grants to support the renewable energy industry went to foreign-owned companies. That's right -- a stimulus program to create clean energy jobs in America is creating them in foreign countries.
The biggest renewable energy grant, $178 million, went to a bankrupt Australian company for building a wind farm using turbines made by a Japanese company. But that's nothing compared to what a Chinese-U.S. consortium wants for a wind farm in Texas: $450 million in federal grant money.
There are several infuriating aspects to this deal. One is that the project is estimated to create 3,000 jobs in Shenyang, China, where the turbines will be built. Another 300 jobs - temporary construction jobs -- will be created by Texas-based Cielo Wind Power. The project will create a grand total of 30 permanent jobs in the U.S.
Secondly, the consortium is made up of a private equity firm called U.S. Renewable Energy Group. I'm hard pressed to understand why American taxpayers should funnel money to a private investment firm so that 3,000 people can get jobs in Shenyang, China.
There's a reason China is emerging as a world leader in renewable energy technology and the United States isn't. It's because China finds ways to protect and nurture emerging industries and the U.S. doesn't.
China passed a stimulus bill that includes $7 billion in funds for wind energy. Foreign wind-energy companies complain they're being shut out of the bidding. That's because the Chinese set rules that favor home-grown companies. And that's exactly what we should be doing, instead of whining about "protectionism" while we shovel money at Chinese enterprises.
Four U.S. senators are trying to change this misguided policy. They've sponsored a bill that fixes the law so that taxpayer dollars are only spent on projects that create jobs here. The bill is sponsored by four Democrats: Chuck Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana.
Yesterday would not have been too soon for Congress to pass this legislation.
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Bill Chameides: Wind Energy Solution: Wires Across the Water
The solution to a perplexing and complicated problem -- supplying continuous energy from a variable source -- could have a fairly simple solution: make connections, create a network, share the resource. Sound familiar?
see my profile for details and links. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
even with Chinese panels, 75% of the value chain is in the USA,
and all of the energy savings.
The Large wind farms, supposed also have 75% of the value chain where it is installed, and maintained.
"a 50-MW wind farm creates 240 job-years of employment. According to a REPP study released in October 2004, boosting U.S. wind energy installations to approximately eight times today's levels could create 150,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide, with most jobs being added in the 20 states that have lost the most in recent years."
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:QuSd6jtcYdoJ:www.awea.org/faq/wwt_economy.html+wind+farm+employment&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Investigative reporter Ira Stoll:
"First Wind Holdings LLC will get a $117 million loan guarantee from federal "stimulus" funds to finance the construction and start-up of a wind energy project in Kahuku, Hawaii, the federal Department of Energy announced Friday. Once complete, the project will create "six to ten" jobs, according to the Department of Energy. At $117 million, works out to a federally guaranteed loan of between $19.5 million and $11.7 million for each job created...."
http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/03/another-117-million-for-first-wind
'Green jobs, Santa Claus and Unicorn Land'
http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/02/26/3954003-green-jobs-santa-claus-and-unicorn-land-
Bloomberg
China Idles 40% of Windpower Turbine Output Capacity (Update5)
March 11, 2010, 12:07 PM EST
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-11/china-idles-40-of-windpower-turbine-output-capacity-update1-.html
We should have a national economic and industrial policy. We must do this while we still have some manufacturing left. The right wing that wants to import all of our goods forgets that we need manufacturing for defense if nothing else.
Japanese companies in the US steal our technology, they insist on only buying from other Japanese firms if at all possible. Even at the Honda and Toyota plants here they have far more Japanese than required. They could easily fill thousands of jobs with Americans, but they keep them for their own. Where are the politicans that will demand that ?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ernest-frederick-hollings/industrial-policy_b_162724.html
Our military's increasing reliance on foreign-made components points out just how short-sighted (to put it mildly) the government has been in developing and implementing national industrial policy.
I find these numbers difficult to believe.
Australia passed a domestic manufacture law on turbines, and the installer, complained that 75% of the value chain is local, only 25% of the cost goes overseas.
Let the Chinese make the solar panels, let Denmark make the turbines.
Let us profit from their products.
"Let a few at teh top profit from their products"
the way to maximise the benefits of a new technology is not only to create and develop it but produce it as well
You can not have in any meaningful way a viable technology and innovative sector without a productive mfg sector. the two are inextricably linked
Not to mention the spin off and multiplier effects that mfg creates in service, supply and other uses for the new technologies
bottom line is putting people back to work and sharing the benefits of the new terchnology should trump maximising profits for a few at the top - or strengthening foreign countries coffers and industries at US taxpayer expense by increasing and perpetuating the trade deficit
but solar panels and parts are as cheap as glass, a commodity.
75% of the value chain is in the USA e3ven for foreign purchased systems.
That's the math.
Jobs first.
Healthcare and all the rest second.
What would you like the President to do?
I would like to see businesses invest in new technology and create jobs. But they just seem to want to hold on to profits, profits they made by cutting American jobs.
the problem is that there is always an endless supply of thrid world workers willing to work for third world wages - this is a market distortion
we should be fighting for true copmparative adavantage and pull up the thrid world worker, not pull down the first world one
It's profits not unions. The infinite expctation of share and bond holders for ever larger profits drives unions out and American wages down. If unions had a stranglehold on our corporations why then have median incomes declined 4% since 2000, yet per capita income increased 10% over the same period. Because productivity gains have gone entirely to the wealth class not the class defined by union membership.
They no longer need the working Americans and are well on their way to destroying them, with the approval of most of our politicians of both parties. That is why their only solution to unemployment is more corporate welfare.
"Although most of the Economic Elite live and operate inside the US, they are not concerned for our future. To them, the entire world is theirs and they work intimately with other elites throughout the world against the interests of the US public. Ever since the days of Henry Ford, the Economic Elite have needed a thriving US middle class to increase growth and profits, but now, in the global economy, they view the US middle class as obsolete. They increasingly look globally for profits and they would rather pay cheap labor in countries like China and India. On top of the millions of jobs they have already shipped overseas to increase profits at our expense, they are planning to ship an additional 25% of current US jobs overseas as well.
They now see us as the biggest obstacle to their continued consolidation of wealth and resources. This is why they have stepped up their attack on us."
http://ampedstatus.com/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america
http://real-economics.blogspot.com/2010/02/reagans-sabotage-of-anti-trust-has.html
Thank you.
But American labor is more expensive than Chinese, Indian, etc. labor. No matter how upset you get by companies trying to contain costs by shipping jobs overseas, the truth is, until American factory workers are willing to be paid less than they were in the 70s and 80s, we'll never get manufacturing jobs back in this country. And even then it will be a hard sell. I can get my kid a uniform shirt at Walmart for $10. It probably costs less than a buck to make in China. Here it would probably cost 5 times that.
Does that upset me? Yes. Do I think American's should be paid a living wage? Absolutely. But business is business and we now see how corporate and union greed has cost this country our manufacturing industries.
of course there is an almost endless supply oif third world labor out there
the key is not to pll first world workers down, but have policy in place to prevent those who all too willingly exploit the third world worker
For some reason, it's only the middle-class that is supposed to be making a sacrifice under these circumstances.
I can guarantee you that the reason American worker productivity continues to rise isn't because the CEO's are sweating more in their air-conditioned offices.
Denmark has been know as a nation that is very concerned about the the environment and climate change. Are we surprised that they lead in several green tech areas? They would have political support, financial support and a home market for the products.
however what we are not lacking in is a skilled and educated workforce - wtill one of the best and most productive in the world
Its funny how the state with the highest per capita concentrations of engineers and skilled workers also has the highest unemployment - Michigan
And we are not seeing any corresponding upward pressure in wages for such workers - a net effective of a true shortage.
Skilled and educated workers have every right to expect pay commensurate with their skills and education. Offhshoring and programs like H1B short circuit this process
1. Companies that want to maximize profits for shareholders.
2. Unions that want to maximize pay for employees.
3. Consumers who opt for the lower prices at walmart.
What we probably need is a new business model for a charitable manufacturing construct. Like a 501c3 textile mill. We have cotton, empty mills, and a skilled but not-working workforce. We have to rethink not just what we CAN produce but how we produce it.
And we have to re-educate our citizens that buying American helps America.
We seem to be the only modern nation that seems to believe that deficts don't matter or are even good. we have mutlinational coporations whose interests are not always parallel with the interests of our country and an MSM who is all too complicit. we need to keep the trade deficit front and center - it is the gage of jobs, wealth and technology leaving the country
All of our major competitors have coordinated industriial and trade policy that benefits their domestic industries first - something completely lacking in the US - if anything we are actively de-industrializing with our lack of coherent industrial policy and bad economic and trade policy