You might want to add the subsidiary benefits to real economies, particularly local.  The jobs explosion in the US, just at the time it's most needed, from finance and legal to service and construction, with now some 45 manufacturing or assembly plants and their workers, is a key example.

I'd be interested to find out how many people are working Windkraft in Deutschland and Dänemark.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Your topic must seem almost insulting to many of the participants. But, if you make one or two converts, it may be significant. The fact that you're not an anti-nuke advocate may help to bridge some differences.

At any rate - good presentation.

paul spencer

It's a Breeze: European Firms Bring Years of Experience to U.S. Wind Power Market - Knowledge@Wharton

European wind-power firms see an opportunity in the United States' increasing interest in alternative energy. Indeed, the inroads that electricity-generating wind turbine technology has made in the U.S. are due in large part to the efforts of companies based in Europe.

<...>

"Wind at present becomes viable as a result of its subsidies," says Matthew White, a business and public policy professor at Wharton. Barring a sudden technological leap, "wind would not be competitive with coal" absent incentives such as the Production Tax Credit. So, with the PTC's inconsistent history, why are so many European firms jumping into the U.S. wind energy arena? And for that matter, why are wind "farms" a much more common sight throughout Europe than in the United States?

"In Europe, there's more of a willingness to move forward on environmental protection," White said. "Europe has been a whole lot more willing to pay the short term price. That price can include the higher upfront costs of enacting more aggressive regulation. And it can also encompass subjective costs -- such as aesthetic concerns about the siting of wind turbines."

<...>

While European nations have leapt ahead of the curve in wind power development, a number of organizations see the makings of a brand new U.S. economy based on sustainable technology and practices. The Center for American Progress report also called for a two-year, $100 billion federal stimulus package to encourage six "green" infrastructure areas, including wind. The report's authors say the program could be paid for in full through a "cap-and-trade" carbon auction in which companies would pay for the right to pollute above a pre-set standard. The report also claimed that such a program would create two million jobs, as people would be needed to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency, expand mass transit, build and maintain "smart grid" electrical transmission systems, and develop wind and solar power, along with renewable biofuels, to ease demand for foreign oil.

And, like Frank Sinatra's wig,  you can hardly see the joins between J the banker and J the sustainable citizen ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

A spokeswoman for the Crown Estate said the response to the licensing round had "greatly exceeded our expectations". The body, which owns parts of Regent Street as well as 55% of Britain's foreshore, traces its history back to George III, who swapped much of his land for a fixed income from the Treasury. It is independent of the monarch and the government.

The interest in deep-water projects is a welcome boost for the industry, which is still hobbled by problems that ministers have endlessly promised to sort out.

The same is already true in Germany, despite its somewhat lower wind penetration than in Denmark (11% of electricity produced, vs 25%)

11%? Methinks you quoted the 2006 figure for all renewables. The 2007 figure for wind alone is 6.3%.

Also, before someone spins the poll numbers in your fourth graph the wrong way: that the overwhelming support for wind power is the lowest in Germany should be seen in the context of present level of wind power installations and "large increase" in the future.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

See .blog -- Is it something enough of us would find useful? for some, but not all clue, and make the obvious substitutions, for .bank, etc.

I still have to go to Paris for .paris and I'd still like to meet you.

I must have upset a supporter of anti-wind flim-flammery, since my take on Dr. Robert Hayden's flimsy arguments have attracted a -1 rating on The Oil Drum. See for yourself.

I'll admit that I was not very respectful for the bullshit spouted by Dr. Hayden.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

Sold six damn years ago.

God damn it Jerome I wish you would come and argue the case for my ridge top property. It is close enough to the transmission lines, says me, and they keep saying not yet, not yet, maybe next year we will get to you. While my neighbor 15 miles away as the crow flies - well, the red-tailed hawk really - my neighbor is cashing in.

Everything else to one side, like local jobs and all the rest of it, at $400/month/turbine plus a little bit up front, I'd be set up and could maybe afford a vacation again hallelujah. I've never gotten around to Paris, I hear it's nice in the spring.

Wouldn't you know my grandparents would focus on the best soil for miles around and neglect to settle near where a transmission would be a hundred years later? What the hell were they thinking?

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson