The other day I posted Green Revolution – Ideology Holding America Back
The world understands that “green energy” is the next big industry that will drive the world economy. Actually, the rest of the world has understood this for some time and has been investing and inventing and innovating and building.
This energy revolution that is beginning is big, and it means jobs. It could mean jobs here. Let’s take a brief look at what I mean. Here are a few snippets about wind farms from the news in just the last day or so:
GE wins $1.4 billion wind farm contract
The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles…
GE estimates that it will supply 338 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbine models to be installed between 2011 and 2012.
This is manufacture of 338 giant turbines and their base and blades, and the entire manufacturing supply chain, transporting them, installation and its construction supply chain (including improvements to area roads), ongoing operation and maintenance, transmission lines, etc.
In Rhode Island, an offshore windfarm development will start with 8 turbines, and add as many as 100 in a few years.
In Michigan,
DTE is planning to order turbines in 2011, and the first DTE wind farm hopefully will be completed in 2012. Fifty percent of the $4 billion wind farm project will be built by DTE, and the other half will be built by other companies on behalf of DTE, officials said.
The first DTE wind farm in the county is planned to be about 55 megawatts. This would be about 25 turbines on about 3,100 acres generating 130,000 megawatt hours per year.
… a major wind farm in Grant County is almost complete.
Owned by Grant County Wind LLC, the 10 wind turbines, each generating up to 2 Megawatts of power…
A South Carolina company that makes precast concrete bases for wind turbines has announced it will locate a plant in Newton, creating up to 400 new jobs by 2014.
OK, these in the news in just the last few days. These are just wind farm projects but there are also all the upcoming projects involving solar, biomass, hydrogen, hydro, geothermal, advanced batteries, electric and hybrid cars, high-speed rail, mass transit — and then all the upgrades to the energy grid, infrastructure, etc.
Did I mention retrofitting all residential, commercial and government buildings to be energy efficient? How many jobs would that involve? How much would that save in energy costs?
Things are happening. here is a revolution beginning.
Oh, did I mention that when these are up and running we are no longer paying for oil or coal – so everything costs less – or putting carbon in the air? No longer dependent on unstable regions for our energy supplies?
Here is a video showing 25 windfarms on Google Earth
