renewable energy

A Vision for Economic Renewal – An American Jobs Agenda

Leo Gerard — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:32:21 -0400

Written with Leo Hindery Jr., Chair of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation

America is facing a catastrophic jobs crisis. Not since the Great Depression has official unemployment hovered above nine percent – where it is today – for more than 20 months. Millions of American have given up looking for a job altogether. Even worse, real unemployment is more than 18%. Yet Washington overall has obviously yet to embrace a large-scale job creation agenda. Even if we reach consensus around the deficit – the only economic issue even getting any attention these days – it will do little to help the 29 million Americans who are unemployed in real terms. If we do not seriously tackle jobs, our country may never regain its competitive global edge.

We recently co-chaired a Task Force on Job Creation, seeking real solutions to the jobs crisis plaguing our country. This group of policy makers, economists, business and labor leaders developed a series of 15 immediate recommendations for reversing the crisis, outlined in a new report, "Vision for Economic Renewal: An American Jobs Agenda." We found there are six vital policy areas that our government must address in order to create millions more jobs now: manufacturing, trade and globalization, U.S.-China trade, the infrastructure crisis, jobs in the green economy, and youth unemployment.

Washington is often a city of Chicken Littles, which makes ringing the alarm bell difficult. But once Washington wakes up from its deficit hangover, politicians will realize something that most Americans have known for months: The sky has already fallen.

Here’s what we can and need to do:

Manufacturing
America’s manufacturing sector must be a cornerstone of the nation’s economy and thus one of the essential drivers of the recovery we are still searching for. Yet manufacturing remains in a decades-long free fall, with, like most other sectors, stagnant wages for more than a decade. In just three years, our manufacturing sector has lost over 2.5 million jobs, and over the last decade, we’ve lost more than 6 million. The continuing decline of manufacturing will limit job growth and jeopardize our national standing. Industries that were once great contributors to our country – auto manufacturing, shipbuilding and machine tools fabrication – are barely shadows of what they once were. Meanwhile, jobs in other leading manufacturing sectors, like aerospace, are being offshored every day.

Why the decline? One of the fundamental reasons is simply that the U.S. lacks a national manufacturing strategy that integrates policies around tax and investment, R&D, domestic procurement and currency valuation. And we lack any plan for how to restore this sector. Our task force identified several ways to bring back this sector:

• Buy-Domestic Procurement requirements. No single measure would do more to help resuscitate U.S. employment, particularly in manufacturing, than an encompassing buy-domestic government procurement requirement. All infrastructure projects funded and guaranteed by the federal government and the proposed infrastructure bank should require purchases to be made in America rather than overseas, consistent with our international trade agreements. As well, to qualify as “Made in America,” at least 75 percent of the content should have to be manufactured within our borders. To make that happen, Congress should require domestic content calculations to be effective and transparent. Domestic sourcing requirements for all government procurement programs (e.g., Buy American, the Recovery Act) and programs that support U.S. exports (e.g., the U.S. Export-Impact Bank) should also be reviewed to ensure that contracting agencies are obeying and implementing the requirements. The Defense Authorization Bill passed in December that requires the Pentagon to buy solar panels from U.S. manufacturers is a good model. In addition, Congress needs to enact an all-of-government successor to the 1933 Buy American Act.

• Link an investment tax credit directly to jobs. A 10% investment tax credit for the rehabilitation and renovation of existing manufacturing facilities would pump billions of dollars into modernizing America’s plants. And with an additional investment tax credit for new equipment, businesses could retool their factories.

• Determine which government programs create and support U.S. jobs. We should require those bidding or applying for government contracts, assistance, grants or awards to provide detailed Employment Impact Statements in the application process. Results would factor into the outcome of the project or transaction.

Trade and Globalization
Our trade policies and unaddressed ills from globalization exacerbate America’s manufacturing industry woes. Just since 2001, the U.S. has had massive annual trade deficits totaling over $6 trillion. Yet the U.S. has no precise strategy to compete in a globalized economy.

In many parts of the developing world, workers toil for minimal pay under harsh conditions because organizing against unfair treatment is prohibited. This cheap labor seduces large multinational companies to move production overseas, where healthcare, pension and environmental costs are minimal. While human rights are plundered, U.S. workers are also losing their jobs. And many of the Asian countries where these jobs are going are manipulating their currencies to keep them undervalued against the dollar and are providing massive illegal subsidies and other unfair trade benefits.

We must mobilize to restore balance and mutual benefit to international trade. Let’s call on our leadership to:

• Restructure the tax code so American companies stay here. Right now, we provide tax incentives for companies to invest overseas, a sure sign that our economy works best for big business instead of for regular Americans. We must fix our tax code so corporations are not rewarded for closing plants and shipping jobs to China. In addition, Congress should offer partial tax rebates on exported goods and impose equivalent taxes on imports.

• Protect national security manufacturing. Today, the U.S. has an $80 billion annual trade deficit with China just for “Advanced Technology Products,” many of which are essential to our national defense. Congress should pass legislation requiring that certain critical items be subject to a national security impact statement before allowing their manufacturing overseas.

• Enact temporary tariffs. Congress should enact temporary tariffs to protect our high-value manufacturing. A temporary policy of import tariffs, coupled with encouragement of foreign direct investment, would provide the U.S. with all the benefits of free trade without promoting a low-wage workforce.

• Create a new Justice Dept. bureau to enforce trade. On the issue of enforcement, an independent office within the Department of Justice would be tougher and more effective at ensuring that our trade agreements are complied with.

• Initiate trade cases under the U.S. trade remedy laws. The U.S. should spearhead an Unfair Trade Strike Force to be deployed when nations violate trade laws.

U.S.-China Trade
It is impossible to overlook China when considering how to correct globalization’s unwanted fallout. The Chinese economy has been growing at ten percent a year for the last 30 years. Such unprecedented economic growth is at the root of China’s dramatic surge in military power, international political weight, and financial influence. These developments, with their economic and geo-political implications, are not simply the outgrowth of free market forces and fair trade. Rather, they stem from sophisticated industrial and mercantilist trade policies, often illegal, that China has instituted to establish its great power status.

The U.S. economy will continue its decline unless our leaders in Washington take immediate action to take on Chinese economic practices.

• Create a White House office to focus on American competitiveness. A transparent office dedicated to gathering independent intelligence on our trade competitiveness with China would improve our economic standing. It would help align trade and tax policy so that private sector incentives match the public interest.

• Pursue a hard line on Chinese economic policy. From intellectual property theft to restrictions on rare earth mineral exports to extortionist indigenous innovation purchasing policies, China is playing by a different set of rules and we’re doing little about it. Our government must be willing to challenge and mitigate the disastrous effects of Chinese economic policies on American manufacturing and trade. This should start with a clearer focus from the White House, guided by the independent body recommended above and directed at all federal agencies. Initiatives should include bringing cases in the W.T.O., imposing tariffs when necessary, and requiring rigorous reviews of China’s planned investments in American ports, markets, natural resources and transportation industry.

Infrastructure Crisis
Coincident with the loss of trade and manufacturing is the decline of our nation’s infrastructure. After years of under-investing in public infrastructure, America faces an infrastructure deficit of $3 trillion that is impeding economic growth and undermining our economy’s efficiency. We need to spend $2.2 trillion over just the next five years to meet America’s core infrastructure needs, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. But actual spending plans fall far short.

• Create a levered National Infrastructure Bank. The administration and Congress should create a national infrastructure bank that would be an independent financial institution owned by the government. Able to fund a broad range of infrastructure projects beyond roads, rails and runways, it would make loans and loan guarantees and leverage private capital. It should be able to sell or issue general purpose bonds to raise funds for lending and investment, sell specific project bonds when necessary, and invite private investment, along with state and local government pension plan investments.

Green Economy
Employment opportunities in the “green economy” can provide some relief, although not as much as some project. According to Booz Allen, green projects will create eight million jobs by 2013; the Global Climate Network puts that number at 20 million world-wide by 2030. Bolstering this segment of our economy will put people to work in manufacturing jobs that have the greatest multiplier effect, and will stimulate more economic growth. Leaders in Washington must do more to encourage growth in this industry.

• Extend the Cash Grant Program for renewable energy production. This program converts non-refundable tax credits for renewable energy production into cash grants. Extending the program until the equity and debt markets recover will help create jobs and avoid further job loss in the industry.

• Lengthen the period of the Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit. ARRA authorized up to $2.3 billion in tax credits for investments in qualified advanced energy projects at manufacturing facilities, such as energy storage, electricity transmission, energy conservation technologies, and others.

• Expand Title 17 Loan Guarantee Program. Title 17 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides federal loan guarantees for the construction of energy-related facilities that use “new or significantly improved technologies” which are “non-commercial” and have high technological risk. These guarantees lower the cost of capital for these projects. Broadening Title 17 to include energy-efficiency investments would help spur this market and create new jobs.

Youth Employment
The hardest hit among the unemployed are young people. Almost 25 percent of teenagers from 16 to 19 are officially unemployed. For young adults aged 20 to 24, unemployment is nearly 16 percent – a number not seen since 1948. Many of these disconnected youth are at risk of becoming permanently disengaged from the labor market. Young people who do not have a successful work experience by age 25 are also at greater risk of lifelong poverty.

• Extend the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (W.O.T.C.) beyond August 2011. This law provides small businesses with tax incentives to hire people who might ordinarily struggle to find work – for example, those with lesser skills and veterans. Congress expanded the tax credit in 2009 to include the tax credits for hiring disconnected youth. Our ongoing national youth unemployment demands that this W.O.T.C. provision be extended well beyond August of this year.

Our national leadership is responsible for tackling the extreme real unemployment and stagnant wages crises. President Obama has already shown a strong willingness to reform health care and regulate the financial services industries. Today, however, our nation needs, from all of Washington, that same passion and commitment directed at job creation. It’s time our leaders show the moral courage that defines true leadership and resolve to restore what all good Americans want and need: the security, well-being and self-respect that come from fair employment and wages.

***

Leo Hindery Jr. is chair of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation and an investor in media companies. He is the former CEO of AT&T Broadband and its predecessors, Tele-Communications, Inc. and Liberty Media.

On Labor Day, Work to Save the Middle Class

Leo Gerard — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:09:57 -0400

This Labor Day feels gloomy. It’s a celebration of work when there is not enough of it, a day off when too many desperately seek a day on.

America has commemorated two Labor Days since this brutal recession began near the end of George Bush’s presidency in December of 2007. Now the relentless high unemployment, the ever-rising foreclosures, the unremitting wage and benefit take-backs have replaced American optimism and enthusiasm with fear and anger.

Happy Labor Day.

On this holiday, we can rant with Glenn Beck, kick the dog and hate the neighbor lucky enough to retain his job. Or we can do something different. We can join with our neighbors, employed and unemployed, our foreclosed-on children, our elderly parents fearing cuts in their Social Security lifeline and our fellow workers worrying that the furlough ax will strike them next. Together we can organize and mobilize and create a grassroots groundswell that gives government no choice but to respond to our needs, the needs of working people.

We can do what workers did during the Great Depression to provoke change, to create programs like Social Security and achieve recognition of rights like collective bargaining. These changes were sought by groups to benefit groups. In a civil society, people care for one another. And America is such a society – one where people routinely donate blood to aid anonymous strangers, children set up lemonade stands to contribute to Katrina victims and working families find a few bucks for United Way.

The self-righteous Right is all about individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That proposition – the do-it-all- by-yourself-winner-takes-all philosophy – clearly failed because so many Americans are jobless, homeless and too penniless to afford boots.

Over the past decade, the winner who took all was Wall Street. The banksters gambled on derivatives and other risky financial tomfoolery and won big time. Until they lost. And crashed the economy. After the American taxpayer bailed them out, those wealthy traders returned to making huge profits and bonuses based on perilous schemes.

Still, they believe they haven’t taken enough from working Americans. They’re lobbying to end aid for those who remain unemployed in a recession caused by Wall Street recklessness. And they’re demanding extension of their Bush-given tax breaks. This is the nation’s upper 1 percent, people who earn a million or more each year, the 1 percent that took home 56 percent of all income growth between 1989 and 2007, the year the recession began.

Since 2007, 8.2 million workers have lost jobs. Millions more are underemployed, laboring part-time when they need full-time jobs, or barely squeaking by on slashed wages and benefits. Since the recession began, the unemployment rate nearly doubled, from 5 percent to 9.6 percent, and that does not include those so discouraged that they’ve given up the search for jobs, a decision that is, frankly, understandable when there are only enough openings to re-employ 20 percent of the jobless. Five unemployed workers compete for each job created in this sluggish economy.

And American workers weren’t prepared for this downturn, having already suffered losses in the years before it began. The median income, adjusted for inflation, of working-age households declined by more than $2,000 in the seven years before the recession started.

At the same time, practices like off-shoring jobs and signing regressive international trade deals contributed to the loss of middle class, blue collar jobs. A new report, “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market,” by the Center for American Progress and The Hamilton Project, says:

“The decline in middle-skill jobs has been detrimental to the earnings and labor force participation rates of workers without a four-year college education, and differentially so for males, who are increasingly concentrated in low-paying service occupations.”

The recession compounded that, the report says:

“Employment losses during the recession have been far more severe in middle-skilled white- and blue-collar jobs than in either high-skill, white-collar jobs or low-skill service occupations.”

What that means is high roller banksters are living large; lawn care workers and waitresses subsist on minimum wage, and working class machinists and steelworkers are disappearing altogether.

The researchers found the U.S. economy is increasingly polarized into high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low wage jobs. America is losing the middle jobs and with them its great middle class.

No wonder the rising anger in middle America.

But fury doesn’t solve the problem. This Labor Day, we must organize to save ourselves and our neighbors. We must stop America from descending into plutocracy. We must demand support for American manufacturing and middle class jobs. That means terminating tax breaks for corporate outsourcers, ending trade practices that violate agreements and international law and punishing predator countries for currency manipulation that subverts fair trade by artificially lowering the price of products shipped into the U.S. while artificially raising the price of American exports.

We must demand support for American industry, particularly manufacturers of renewable energy sources like solar cells and wind turbines that create good working class jobs, increase America’s energy independence and reduce climate change.

We must insist on policies that support the middle class, including preserving Social Security and Medicare, extending unemployment insurance while joblessness remains high, and enforcing the health care reform law so that every American worker and family can afford and is covered by insurance.

On this Labor Day, we should all have a picnic, invite neighbors, friends and family, and over hot dogs and potato salad, organize to save the American middle class.

Mobilize to end the gloom and restore American optimism.

***

For help: the Union of the Unemployed, the AFL-CIO, USW, Working America. Join the One Nation March for jobs Oct. 2 in Washington, D.C.

What’s Green, White and Blue? American Jobs

Leo Gerard — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:05:12 -0400

Red, as in furiously red, defined the day last fall when a consortium of companies announced it wanted $450 million in U.S. stimulus money to build a wind farm in Texas, creating 2,000 jobs in China and 300 in America.

Now, nine months later, things have cooled down and turned around. In a deal with the United Steelworkers (USW), two Chinese companies have agreed to build as much of the wind turbines as possible in America, using American-made steel, and creating perhaps 1,000 American jobs.

The deal is a result of white collar Chinese executives negotiating with blue collar union officers to create green collar jobs in the U.S. The agreement defies stereotypes about unions as constantly combative, excessively expensive and environmentally challenged. The USW has a track record of engaging with enlightened CEOs for mutual benefit. It has a long green history. And it has worked to return off-shored jobs to the U.S.

The USW, like the Democrats in the House and Senate with their Make It in America program, is devoted to preserving and creating family-supporting, prosperity-generating manufacturing jobs in America. And if they’re green, all the better.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross has first-hand experience negotiating with unions, including the USW, to sustain U.S. manufacturing. He describes it positively. Here he is on PBS’ Charlie Rose on Aug. 2:

“I have found the leaders of big industrial unions, the steelworkers, the auto workers, they understand dynamics of industry at least as well as the senior management of the companies.”

Ross talked to Rose about dealing with the USW during the time when he was buying LTV Steel:

“We worked out a contract that took 32 job classifications down to five, changed work rules to make it more flexible and most important of all, we put in a blue collar bonus system. . .We became the most efficient steel company in America. We were making steel with less than one man hour per ton. The Chinese at the time were using six man hours per ton. We were actually exporting some steel to China.”

Ross accomplished that while paying among the highest wages for manufacturing workers in America.

The USW approached the Chinese companies that planned the $1.5 billion Texas wind farm, A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd. and Shenyang Power Group, the same way it did Ross. The meetings occurred with the help of U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private equity firm that facilitates international financing and investment in renewable energy projects. Jinxiang Lu, chairman and chief executive of Shenyang Power, said talking to the union enabled him to see its “vision for win-win relationships between manufacturers and workers.”

For the USW, this deal means the Chinese firms will initially buy approximately 50,000 tons of steel manufactured in unionized American mills to fabricate towers and rebar for the 615 megawatt wind farm in Texas, will employ Americans at a wind turbine assembly plant to be built in Nevada, and will employ more American workers in green jobs at plants constructing the blades, towers and thousands of other wind turbine parts.

For the Chinese companies, the USW, the largest manufacturing union in America, will use its long list of industry contacts to help construct an American supply chain essential to amass the approximately 8,000 components in a wind turbine. The idea is to collaboratively create a solid manufacturing, assembly, component sourcing, and distribution system so that this team – the Chinese companies, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and the USW -- will build many more wind farms after the first in Texas.

Additional wind farms mean more renewable energy freeing the U.S. from reliance on foreign oil. As U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says, there’s no point in replacing imported foreign oil with imported wind turbines. For energy and economic independence, green manufacturing capacity and green jobs must be in the U.S.

This deal does that. And there’s nothing unusual about foreign companies employing Americans. Many Americans, including USW members, already work in factories owned by many different foreign national companies, including German, Russian, Japanese, Mexican, and Brazilian, with names like Bridgestone-Firestone, Arcelor-Mittal, Rio Tinto, Grupo Mexico, Svenska Cellulosa AB (SCA) and Severstal.

In at least one other case, action by the USW forced the hand of a Chinese company to move jobs to the U.S. Tianjin Pipe, the world’s largest manufacturer of steel pipe, said it could not export profitably to the United States if tariffs rose above 20 percent. This was after the USW and seven steel manufacturers filed a petition with U.S. trade agencies in April of 2009 accusing China of illegally dumping and subsidizing the type of pipe used in the oil and gas industry. The union won that case this past April, and the U.S. Commerce Department imposed import duties ranging from 30 to 100 percent to give the domestic industry relief from the unfair trade practices. To continue selling in the U.S., Tianjin Pipe had no choice but to build an American pipe mill. Construction is expected to begin in Texas this fall on the $1 billion plant to employ 600 by 2010.

Although the USW is cooperating with A-Power and Shenyang Power, it will not back off its trade cases involving exported Chinese steel, pipe, tires, paper and other manufactured products. The stakes for U.S. jobs are just too high.

Back in 1990, when green was not as trendy, the USW recognized that the environment would be among the most important issues of the era and issued the report, “Our Children’s World.” Since then, it has steadily promoted green -- became a founding member of the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance, which promote renewable energy and renewable energy jobs.

Good, green American manufacturing jobs. Establishing American energy independence. It is win-win. And it’s getting a green light now.

European Offshore Wind Industry Taking Off

Jerome A. Paris — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:39:38 -0500

2009 marks the third year of industrialisation and growth for the nascent offshore wind sector, with a lot more to come:

Source: EWEA - The European offshore wind industry
key trends and statistics 2009 (PDF)

With just under 600MW installed in 2009, this is just under 10% of the wind capacity built in Europe in the year, but it's a sign of things to come as 3.5GW are already in construction and another 16GW are fully permitted.

More below [with specific comments on the US situation added]. Part of the Wind power series.

The UK is currently the country with the most offshore wind capacity; in coming years the country and Germany will be the top two markets for offshore, with plans of more than 20GW each in the next decade or so. [The US are expected to start building some offshore capacity in the next few years, but basically the industry there is 10 years behind Europe, and will need to re-learn some of the lessons already learnt because European vessels and equipment are forbidden from engaging in US waters because of the Jones Act]

Note that roughly 90% of all offshore turbines installed so far have been manufactured in Denmark, and while Germany is the home of several new ambitious manufacturers (Repower, Multibrid, BARD), the two Danish incumbents (Vestas & Siemens) are likely to keep on dominating the market for some time to come. This was a €1.5 billion industry last year, it will double this year, and triple again in the next few years...[For early US projects, the turbines will come from Europe. Consistent development and some critical mass will be required for manufacturing to shift to the US. But as noted below, a good chunk of the jobs will be local by necessity - steel or concrete foundations, marine works, port operations, vessels, clong term operations and maintenance]

There are two key issues to solve to ensure that the massive plans under way do happen in full:

getting the grid connections in place. The regulatory framework for national connections has largely been put in place (for instance, in Germany, it is the responsibility by law of the grid operators to provide access to the grid to offshore projects) and discussions are under way to set up intra-European connections across the North Sea. Investment is exepcted to take place in parallel to that in the wind farms themselves; domestic networks are also being strengthened to absorb the new generation capacity, which is largely concentrated in one region;
While the technical challenages are real (but solvable), it must be noted that the various European countries have largely put in place a framework for the industry which works and will work into the future - all under the coordination of the EU, which has taken a leading role there. This is a good exemple of the EU regulatory powers at work for the good of all, here. [in the US, offshore is actually going to be relatively easy on the grid - projects will be close to load centers and relatively easy to connect and integrate - all that will be needed is the (not small matter of the) offshore cable]

financing such investments. The plans will require growing investments, reaching roughly ten billion euros per year in a few years. While this is largely a utility play, ie the investments will be made by companies with strong balance sheets and with a solid capacity to invest, the amounts are so large that external financing will likely be required. That market is barely emerging, both on the debt side (which is what I do) and on the equity side (with new players like funds and a few independent developers to invest alongside experienced utility owners) and a lot of work is going to be needed. [This is even truer of the US, where historically the wind sector has largely been financed on the debt side, by European banks, which are going to be stretched by the needs of the sector in Europe already... on the other hand, a lot of financial investors could get into the game]
As I wrote the bit in the report on financing, let me quote myself...

Positive financial trends were evident in the second half of 2009 with the Belwind and Boreas transactions, which involved different sponsors, technologies, bank groups and authorities. By creating two high-profile precedents for the sector and bringing about the involvement of many new banks, they opened the door to more deals in the future. The presence of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in the Belwind financing is also likely to be a crucial precedent for the multilateral institution as it builds up its investment in the sector.
(...)
The offshore wind industry was also buoyed during 2009 by the European Union’s European Economic Recovery Plan which injected €255 million of the €565 million directed towards offshore wind into five separate offshore wind farms (...) This stimulus injection was vital, and it remains crucial that this financing is released as soon as feasible and that the Commission’s review in 2010 of the European Economic Recovery Plan, or any further stimulus package, continues to target the offshore wind industry as a strategic European sector.
To ensure that the market growth expected for 2010 is not blown off course the European institutions, particularly the EIB, must continue to increase their involvement in the offshore wind industry.
More generally, banks must be given continued comfort that stable regulatory – and in particular revenue – regimes will be in place over the long term, and that connection to the grid is guaranteed to offshore wind projects.
Given the continued worries in the banking world about long term liquidity availability, European institutions should consider structures to provide dedicated low-cost funding to banks active in the offshore wind sector. Such a mechanism would have the additional advantage of bringing the overall cost of offshore wind down.

I'm especially happy that the last sentence was included in the EWEA report as it means that the concept of cost of funding - and the advantage of the public sector in that respect - is beginning to get a hearing...

Along with these two issues, the big thing now is going to be to industrialize the sector, ie ensure economies of scale by replicating processes as much as possible, both during construction and during long term maintenance. The good thing is that Europe has now attained a critical mass of projects in the water, and reached a good level of experience. There are enough projects around to justify the investment in ad hoc vessels, harbor facilities, turbine factories, personnel training, and to ensure that construction takes place as efficiently as possible (given the inevitable weather uncertainty on site). There is now enough operational data - at least on some turbine models - to streamline and optimize maintenance procedures and reduce the number or at least the complexity of interventions at sea, and reduce their cost by replication over large fleets. The hope is that costs can be driven down significantly through that learning and expansion process. And it's good industrial policy - not much of that work can be offshorised outside of Europe, that is...[The same naturally applies to the US - except that the economies of scale and experience are still 10 years away, and that a lot of the lessons from Europe will need to be ignored as the industry needs to start from scratch with currently inadequate US vessels]

Oh, yes: you can call me a wind shill!

This was cross-posted from European Tribune.

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Message To Energy Department: U.S. Greenbacks For U.S. Green Jobs

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:47:13 -0500

News of the potential use of U.S. stimulus funds for a wind power project in Texas that will produce 2,000 Chinese manufacturing jobs—but a scant number of American jobs—has generated justifiable outrage, including a letter from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to Energy Secretary Steven Chu urging him to "deny Recovery Act funding to this project" unless the majority of the manufacturing of the wind turbines is done in the United States.

It's therefore not surprising that today the Chinese firm that is a primary investor in the project, A-Power Energy Generation Systems, is doing some PR tap-dancing to quell the fury.

But PR tap-dancing from A-Power, and especially from the Department of Energy, which opened the door to the potential of this happening, is not enough. Energy Secretary Steven Chu needs to heed a simple demand: American tax dollars for America's economic recovery must support American jobs. Period.

That's the thrust of the grassroots push the Campaign for America's Future is launching today, which aims to flood Chu's office with this message:

The news that a Texas wind farm is seeking stimulus money to create only 30 jobs here but 2000 jobs in China is disturbing, especially since unemployment in America has surpassed 10%.

China has understandably taken steps to stimulate its economy with its funds and move towards clean energy. We should be taking similar steps at home, not using our tax dollars to offshore jobs that could be created here.

I support Sen. Chuck Schumer's call for you to reject any request for stimulus money unless the high‐value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.

This battle goes to the heart of the economic strategy that this nation will pursue to work its way out of recession and lower unemployment, which today was announced at 10.2 percent.

One reason we are having to fight this battle to begin with is the flawed conservative ideology pursured by the Bush administration and its predecessors. A must-read investigation published lat month by Russ Choma at the American University School of Communications pointed out that while European governments were laying the groundwork for a green manufacturing economy, we "dithered."

The reliance on foreign companies for development of wind energy appears to be at least partially tied to the U.S. government’s resistance to subsidize a home-grown wind energy industry until now. With so few U.S. companies in the business, the door was open for foreign companies to walk away with the bulk of the grants. European companies, in particular, are well positioned to collect stimulus benefits for clean energy.

“Europe was light years ahead of us, in terms of developing these alternative resources,” said Gregory Jenner, a tax attorney and former acting and deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for tax policy, who co-authored a guide for energy companies hoping to collect stimulus money. “The fact that a lot of the European companies are coming over to the U.S., they just see this as an untapped market. Now that the incentives are starting to work out ... it's going to be just like a gold rush for them.”

While the U.S. has dithered with temporary tax incentives for producers, European governments have awarded permanent tax breaks and large subsidies to wind energy companies and poured vast sums into research and technology.

As a consequence, the article says, "European turbine-manufacturers have dominated the world market and continue to do so in the U.S. Indian-manufactured turbines are swiftly moving into the U.S. market as well, complementing Japanese manufacturers who have long been here."

As for China, The Washington Post reported last month that "the government has closed down old cement and coal plants [and] subsidized row upon row of new wind turbines," seeking to generate 120 gigawatts of power from wind by 2020, four times what the United States generates from wind today. And China's government, unlike the United States, sets demands for domestic production.

Earlier this year, a report by the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a think tank that has worked with labor and environmental groups, warned the Obama administration and Congress that it was important that the country has a deliberate policy of focusing government green-energy resources on creating American jobs.

For every megawatt of new wind power capacity — enough potential clean electricity to power up to 300 homes — REPP estimates 4.85 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs are created to manufacture, install and then operate and maintain the wind farm. About 70-75 percent of the total labor required for a typical wind turbine or solar panel is in manufacturing the various component parts that could be supplied by existing U.S. businesses. These are the potential “green jobs” that are key to revitalizing the U.S. and global economy. Without new policies promoting domestic manufacturing, an unnecessarily large portion of these jobs will remain overseas.

We are now seeing that prophecy about to come true. It is time for the Obama administration and Congress to work together on the policies and incentives that will foster the growth of green-energy manufacturing, not just green-energy consumption. It makes no sense to substitute dependence on Middle Eastern oil with dependence on Chinese or European wind and solar technology—not when we have the expertise, the workers and the facilities to build renewable energy products, and especially when taxpayers rightfully demand that every stimulus dollar possible be used to get U.S. workers back into solid jobs.

Let's send Chu that message today.

America's Energy Policy Equals American Values

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:05:49 -0400

With A Compass, Not A Roadmap

Eric Lotke — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:14:55 -0500

The complaints are starting on the new Obama administration. Some are concerned that he filled his administration with former Clinton hands, reflecting the old school (if more competent), not the change we need.

“What worries me is there is not one person in the senior group who is the outsider to this club,” cautioned Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect. “Where is the diversity of opinion in this economic team?”

David Sirota of our own Campaign for America's Future observes that some terrific progressives have been appointed to high-level positions in the Administration, but they are political jobs, not substantive ones. They are “positions that are focused on selling policy, whatever that policy may be. “ In contrast, the “policy advisers who actually craft policy are almost all right-of-center, Establishment choices.”

Discontent is coming from the other direction as well, as Democrats increase estimates of the cost to revive the economy. During the campaign Obama pledged roughly $150 billion in spending over 10 years to create new jobs for clean energy and rebuilding schools. Now Congressional Democrats are estimating immediate expenditures in the $700 billion range. The GOP has created a spendometer to track the continuing increases.

Obama himself dodges questions about cost. “It is going to be of a size and scope that is necessary to get this economy back on track,” he said in his November 24 press conference. “I don't want to get into numbers right now.”

The question for progressives is whether to demand the details or question his choices.

Both seem premature. Political change happens with a compass, not a roadmap. Obama has clearly indicated which way he wants to lead: in the direction of clean energy, massive public investments, an exit from Iraq and “affordable, accessible health care for all Americans.” These are important and fundamentally progressive goals.

Digby sees a positive side to the appointments to political -- if not substantive -- positions. Simply using progressive language drives our country in a positive direction.

Let’s hope that those old Clinton hands will have the skills and experience to navigate the changing terrain. Obama’s job is to set a direction. Our job is to push him forwards and keep him on course.

Holly Randall

Holly Randall — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:32:38 -0500

Retooling a Developed Economy’s Energy Base: Germany

Philip Palij — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:45:14 -0400

Its happening. Breaking step with big oil is much harder in the US and catching up is vital. Support for Big Oil is retarding US development

"...Germany is at the forefront of this wave of change. Energy consumption in Germany dropped 5.6% - the equivalent of 18.5..." (MILLION) "... tons of oil - in 2007 as its economy grew 2.5%..."