You know the saying: Ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately for the
American taxpayer, when it comes to the wind turbine industry,
ignorance is not as blissful as it is infuriating. According to a
new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop (in
coordination with ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer and the
Watchdog Institute), Obama can now add wind turbines to his
growing list of failures within the stimulus package.
Renewable energy industry is growing; wind turbines are a key
avenue of that growth. Obama has said he would like to be a
leader in clean energy but that the United States is struggling
to make this goal a reality. He’s right, but that’s only half the
story. The Workshop reports that $2.1 billion in stimulus grants
have been given to wind, solar and geothermal companies to make
good on Obama’s objective but almost 80% of those went to foreign
companies. A bankrupt Australian company nabbed the largest grant
so far-$178 million. With that, Babcock & Brown built “a
Texas wind farm using turbines made by a Japanese company.”
Even Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), hardly a foe of Obama’s
stimulus package, was disappointed with the news that foreign
companies were receiving-4 to 1-stimulus funds and jobs on
renewable energy-related projects. In an interview with ABC News
he said: “Very few jobs here, lots of jobs in China. That is not
what I intended or any other legislator who voted for the
stimulus intended…It is fine that the Chinese make them. But
why don’t we use the stimulus money to start building up an
industry to build them here, that was the very point of the
stimulus.”
Of the 80% of stimulus grants going to wind facilities, the
majority of those are turbines which prevail in popularity both
with renewable energy advocates, professional and laymen alike.
If the 4 to 1 ratio is frightening, never fear: According to
StimulusWatch.org, several organizations
around the country are receiving your tax dollars-I mean stimulus
money-to fund large-scale wind turbine projects. The National
Science Foundation is receiving $435,231 in grant money to work
on a wind turbine project in Buford, Wyoming. Likewise, the
Department of Energy received nearly $25 million to “design,
construct, and ultimately have responsibility for the operation
of the Large Wind Turbine Blade Test Facility” through the
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. According to the report, no
jobs are being created through those projects.
While the stimulus funds for energy projects are creating little
to no jobs in the United States, they number they produce
overseas is maddening. Allow the numbers to illuminate: The
Renewable Energy
Policy Project did a study and estimated that for every 1
megawatt of wind energy that is developed, 4.3 jobs are created.
There were about 1,219 turbines built by foreign-owned
manufacturers which equates to 2,279.5 megawatts. If you crunch
the Renewable Energy Policy Project’s numbers, the installation
of these turbines may have created as many as 6,838 manufacturing
jobs — anywhere but here.
Such news may cause taxpayers to pause and evaluate the
cost-benefit ratio of the turbines. Estimates vary but some
sources say it can cost $300,000 to transport the turbines and a
2007 estimate by Windustry reported
that a commercial scale wind turbine cost $3.5 million installed.
If one wind turbine produces 1.8 megawatts of energy — enough
energy for 500 households per year — and each household spends
on average $2,150 on their energy bill per year, the turbine
saves $1.75 million per year in energy. At a cost of $3.5 million
installed, a wind turbine will have earned its proverbial keep in
two years.
While the math works out, the economics still don’t. Turbines are
only entirely beneficial if American taxpayer dollars were given
to companies here to give to American workers here to construct
them and if they worked like a charm once they were built.
Unfortunately, therein, as the Bard would say, lies the rub.
In Minnesota, for example, a state which spent $3.3 million on
eleven wind turbines, but which regularly experiences cold,
winter weather, discovered this year their turbines freeze up
when it’s freezing. Apparently the hydraulic fluid which propels
the turbines was supposed to work in colder temperature but
failed to. There’s a plan in progress to heat the fluid but as
Minnesota native Ed Morrissey of Hot Air
reported: “That will drastically reduce the net energy gain
from each turbine, depending on how much heating the turbine
fluid needs to stop congealing in the winter. Since cold weather
here lasts anywhere from 4-6 months, that makes it mighty
inefficient as an energy resource.”
Blame could rest on the shoulder of the state on one side, the
manufacturer on the other, and obviously this is an isolated
incident. But if each American family only saves a few dollars
every month after the wind turbines run efficiently and after
they pay for themselves but their tax dollars were sent overseas
for others to build them in the first place, is there a true cost
benefit besides the warm, fuzzy feeling that we’re all utilizing
clean energy? Like his stimulus package, Obama’s ideas work only
if the theory is put into practice.
