Honestly some days I wake up and rub my eyes thinking, this has to be a dream. Why would Congress allocate stimulus dollars to China to make windmills for a West Texas wind farm that Americans could make?
U.S. Renewable Energy Group, Cielo Wind Power and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, the business consortium behind the Texas based wind farm, has asked congress for nearly a half billion dollars so the project’s 240 windmills can be built in a turbine factory in the city of Shenyang, China.
Despite congress’ undisputed expertise in windbaggery, the Chinese understand what the project means to their economy while we don’t. China, like India, labels renewable technology a top priority, calling it a “strategic industry”. Thus categorized, they give free land, low cost loans and they underwrite jobs for green collar workers employed by companies developing green technology.
We, despite having lost 40,000 manufacturing companies–that’s right companies–in a decade, turn to China to manufacture our windmill turbines. We’re sending US jobs to China along with nearly half a billion US stimulus dollars. With U.S. support, the consortium is contracting with Chinese firms, not American companies, to build Texas’ turbines.
2,330 jobs will come on line, created by the $1.5 billion dollar West Texas farm. That sounds good until you learn that 2,000 of those jobs are in China.
The consortium argues that the Chinese-built wind turbines, made with low cost labor and benefiting
from a subsidized currency, will cost less than American made turbines. But are they cheaper in the long run, given the generally acknowledged higher maintenance costs and poorer quality of the Chinese made turbines? The calculation further shifts to favor stateside production if you factor in the increased domestic tax revenue when Americans go to work, and reduced social costs when fewer collect unemployment.
And while we’re talking about China, are you familiar with my favorite Chinese proverb?
“IF WE DON’T CHANGE DIRECTION,
WE ARE LIBLE TO END UP WHERE WE ARE HEADED”
If U.S. tax dollars can’t be spent to stimulate domestic green jobs, then where indeed are we headed?
Are we heading for an economy based on easily replicated services? ‘Cause if that’s where we’re headed, then we will continue to see a descent into lower wages, decreased buying power, and a quietly dissolving middle class.
Which brings me to my admittedly lame takeoff on another old saying:
“PEOPlE WHO LIVE IN GREEN HOUSES
DON”T NOT NEED FOREIGN LOANS”
What kind of middle class are we betting on? One in which the workers manufacture breakthrough green technologies? Or one dependent on revenues from shopkeepers and clericals? And I am a shopkeeper!
Finally, what about the military implications of ceding yet another manufacturing sector to China? Should, God forbid, we have to confront the powerful Chinese militarily, would we ask them to please build our weapons before the war starts? Would we ask them to add the cost to our tab?
Take a hard look at the West Texas windmill project and the powerful consortium behind it. Perhaps federal dollars provided for the project should stipulate that turbines carry a “Made in America” stamp.
Credit to Leo W. Gerard for bringing this to our attention.
(Comment by My Green Mind’s I Michael Grossman. We welcome your comments as well.)
Newport’s trash is gone. 15,000 music lovers might have left it scattered about Fort Adams State Park over the three days at the jazz Mecca that first formed back in the sixties. Some 2 tons of plastic bottles, paper and other potential waste didn’t get trashed, didn’t go to the landfill and instead is being recycled. Who are our green angels? A terrific group of volunteers from Clean Water Action, with 40,000 members in Rhode Island and more than 1.2 million thoughout the U.S. 
