Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

Guest post by Scott Wood, power technician, Danotek Motion Technologies

There's been a lot of discussion about jobs in energy lately.  I'd like to chip in my two cents, because I have one of those jobs myself.

Right now I work for Danotek Motion Technologies, a company that's based in the Detroit suburbs and that makes a line of industrial equipment used in the wind power business--specifically, advanced permanent magnet generators and full-power converters that are used in both land-based and offshore wind turbines.

I've been with Danotek for about a year and a half, since finishing a power technician training course at the Michigan Institute for Aviation and Technology (MIAT) in Canton, Michigan.

Before ...

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Two more newspapers, the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World and the Connecticut Post, have added their voices to the throng supporting extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

The Journal-World's editorial, published Tuesday, is of special interest because it highlights the division among Kansas's public officials, noting that Congressmen Tim Huelskamp (R) and Mike Pompeo (R) oppose extending the credit, while Gov. Sam Brownback (R) and Sens. Jerry Moran (R) and Pat Roberts (R) have supported it.

Pointing out that wind turbine manufacturer Siemens recently announced layoffs of ...

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Anti-tax advocate and conservative strategist Grover Norquist has a way of capturing your attention, and he definitely got ours Tuesday, co-authoring a Politico op-ed titled "WH [White House] talks wind energy but won't support it." Huh?

In a commentary column at Salon ("GOP anti-tax guru Grover Norquist is losing it"), Andrew Leonard breaks down Mr. Norquist's effort, which turns out to be about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) trying to regulate a copper mine.  We won't get into the details--it's just great to know that Mr. Norquist, who has previously attacked the wind ...

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In a recent blog post at Human Events.com, Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) outlines an energy policy that would mean thousands of Coloradoans losing their jobs, the loss of billions of dollars of new private investment, and continued hardship for our nation’s rural communities.

Many Republicans and Colorado representatives in Congress do not share Mr. Lamborn’s views on wind power production policy.

Recently, on two separate occasions, Republican members of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate took action to support the renewable energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), which Mr. Lamborn opposes. On June 27, 18 House Freshmen, including 16 Republicans, sent a letter to House leadership requesting immediate extension of the PTC. And on August 2, ...

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According to the Tulsa (Okla.) World newspaper, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) told a meeting of the Southern States Energy Board Monday that she is continuing to support an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

Said the article, "[Gov. Fallin] remains committed to an extension of the federal production tax credit for wind energy, joining several other Republican governors and lawmakers in the central United States and highlighting a split with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney ...
 
"Earlier this summer, Romney's campaign said the former Massachusetts governor did not support an extension of the ...

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In a brief and to-the-point editorial Monday, the Scranton (Pa.) Times-Tribune called on Congress to extend the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) beyond its scheduled expiration Dec. 31.

Said the Times-Tribune in part, "The credit is a low-cost job generator that also diversifies the nation's energy portfolio while improving air quality. Its renewal is stalled due to lobbying by fossil fuel industries and opposition by presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"Given that energy security and job creation are two of the biggest issues in the campaign, renewing the production tax credit should be a no-brainer on both sides of the aisle."

The PTC provides an ...

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Guest post with permission of the author.

In the past two years, an obscure allegedly “peer reviewed” research journal, the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, has published a series of papers by authors who have anti-windfarm track records.

The Bulletin has appeared erratically over the past few years. It was indexed between 1981-1995 by the Web of Science, the international scientific indexing platform which “covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings.” But after 1995 it was dropped from the list of journals being indexed, generally a sign that indexing services regard a journal as having fallen below an acceptable scientific standard. ...

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Citing the wind power industry's "impressive gains" in recent years, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard on Sunday joined the lengthy list of newspapers from coast to coast endorsing an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC).

In an editorial, the Register-Guard observed, "Wind turbines that barely existed a decade ago now speck the horizon on either side of the Columbia. Wind companies have invested more than $4.5 billion in Oregon, generating 3,000 jobs, providing millions in tax revenues for state and local governments and helping ranchers, farmers and rural communities survive the Great Recession. Oregon ranks sixth nationally in ...

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National Chamber network, representing 240 local Chambers nationwide, says tax incentive critical to boosting American wind energy jobs, innovation

Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE), the only national, non-partisan clean energy network and information hub for local chambers of commerce, yesterday issued a letter calling on Congress to extend the nation’s key tax incentive for wind energy, the Production Tax Credit (PTC). With 240 local chambers from 47 states participating in its network, the group said allowing the PTC to expire at the end of 2012 would hurt local economies, send jobs and capital elsewhere, ...

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In a recent Huffington Post article, Ronnie Citron-Fink, managing editor and blogger for Moms Clean Air Force, calls for Congress to extend the federal wind energy production tax credit (PTC) for the simplest of reasons:

"Wind is free.
"Wind is clean.
"Wind is renewable.
"Wind is non-polluting.
"Wind doesn't harm children's health.
"But most importantly, wind energy works."

Ms. Citron-Fink refers to a recent economic impact analysis that found that a typical wind farm creates nearly 1,100 jobs. Describing watching her children flying kites, she concludes, ...

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