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<div>In today's Wall Street Journal, front page, an article claims US demand for wind energy technology is not being met domestically, resulting in a slow down of implementation, offering an economic opportunity for European corporations to supply the technology, and own the US wind farms, that can answer the US demand:
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<div>From the article:</div>
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<p class="times">"In recent years, improved technology has made it possible to build bigger, more efficient windmills. That, combined with surging political support for renewable energy, has driven up demand. Now, makers can't keep up -- mostly because they can't get the parts they need fast enough.
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<p class="times">"Numerous wind-power projects from Virginia to California have been stalled due to the shortage. But for some renewable-energy companies in Europe, where wind power has been in vogue for almost two decades, the logjam is a lucrative opportunity. These firms anticipated a shortage of turbines and locked in orders with makers. They're now using their considerable buying power to gobble up smaller utilities in the
U.S. that couldn't otherwise get their hands on turbines."</p>
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<div>So in brief, in the richest nation on Earth, the shining example of the miracle of the marketplace to ensure the latest and best technology to benefit the public will receive investment and implementation, "socialist" Europe is ahead of the US in supplying wind power technology, with European companies making long term investments in owning US wind energy, that could instead be made by US domestic businesses. Why?
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<div>From the article:</div>
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<p class="times">"In the U.S., there's another potential threat to growth -- erratic government support for wind power. Even though wind power has made technical strides recently, energy firms still rely on subsidies because it costs more to generate electricity with wind turbines than other power plants such as coal, natural gas or nuclear. Wind power requires intensive capital investment in a short period of time, and has added costs like upgrading transmission systems. According to the International Energy Agency in Paris, wind farms cost between four and 14 cents to generate a kilowatt hour; coal-fired plants cost between
2.5 and six cents."</p>
<p class="times">"Some 20 states now have price supports for wind-generated electricity, and there is a federal tax credit to encourage new wind-park development. But there is no federal requirement for utilities to buy green energy, as there is in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany. And the tax credit, started in 1992, depends on a biannual congressional approval. An effort to introduce federal support for wind power was shot down this month in the Senate."
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<p class="times">"The lack of a stable, long-term regulatory environment has created a wind-power roller coaster. Developers were never sure their projects would make economic sense a few years down the road if the regulatory climate changed. Foreign turbine manufacturers were reluctant to build factories in the
U.S. Vestas scrapped plans for a U.S. factory three times because of uncertainty. This spring, it announced it would build a turbine plant in Windsor, Colo.</p>
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<div>This link appears to bypass the "subscription required" option for the whole article:</div>
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<div><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html</a></div>
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<div>If this fails, here is the subscription required link:</div>
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<div><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118394439319360560.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one</a></div>
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<div>Here is discussion of the article from "public radio:"</div>
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<div><a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/07/09/AM200707094.html">http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/07/09/AM200707094.html</a></div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</div>