Catch the Wind: The Reality of Wind Power
Longtime attendees told me that this gathering attracted about 200 people 10 years ago, and only 1,000 attendees as late as 2001. 2009 was a massive event, sprawling across the entire South Hall of the expo center. According to The American Wind Energy Association, the conference had 23,200 attendees, close to double the size of last year, with over 1,200 exhibiting companies. This in a year where the recession is shrinking conferences nationwide.
To be as green as the conference, I took a multimodal route to get there: I biked to the Metra, took the train downtown, walked to a bus stop, then took the CTA to McCormick Place. I was glad I made the effort.
In addition to the five governors who came by the conference, speakers included Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, financier T. Boone Pickens, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu (via video). Illinois Governor Pat Quinn used the conference to announce an agreement by which the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS) will purchase all of its energy for facilities in the capitol from wind-generated sources, through the city of Springfield.
The financial and economic crisis is impacting the wind energy industry adversely in two ways: first, with the same blows to general revenue and capital availability felt by most other industries; but also because the plunge in world oil prices, helpful to most businesses, makes wind energy less competitive.
The stats show that Obama isn't kidding about clean energy jobs, at least in wind. Even in this recessionary year, 4,451MW worth of projects are currently under construction across the US. The wind industry employed 85,000 people in the US as of the beginning of 2008. Vestas alone added 5,500 jobs worldwide last year. The picture above shows their show "sphere," an Epcot-like enclosure in which you could watch a short video about their tower and turbine testing regimen, and modular delivery system.
Bureaucracy is lagging legislative initiative. For example, the DoE in theory will back loans to developers for wind projects. Unfortunately, as one vendor told me, this money remains theoretical because the Department has not yet promulgated the rules that will allow the funds to flow.
Many of the exhibits were highly technical and more BTB than intended for the general public. Still, even if you skipped all the bearing and tower-climbing-safety-harness suppliers, there was way more to take in than was probably possible in even 4 days, and even a lot of the technical booths were informative for those looking to soak it all in. More than one exhibitor told me that they wished the exhibitors were better grouped, so folks looking for, say, blade maintenance supplies, could find them all near each other rather than scattered over many acres.
The Obama administration wants the U.S. to be producing 20% of its electricity from wind by 2030. Amazingly, we are on track to do that. The key determinant is continued government support; tax credits play an important part in purchase, development, and installation decisions. Illinois is lagging in part because of the lack of targeted tax credits or equipment write-offs; as a result, all our commercial projects have been located in enterprise zones, the only real incentive offered.
The state's own study shows that renewable energy has great economic potential as well as environmental benefits for Illinois. While the state has a laudable renewable energy standard, it also needs the policies to make those standards reality.
As a legislator, I would make it a mission to make Illinois more proactive in capturing the benefits of wind power and other renewable energy sources.
Adapted from an essay originally published on Gapers Block, May 9, 2009
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