Several of 149 Vestas Wind Turbines at Washington’s Wild Horse wind farm
Wind power is finally gaining traction in the United States. We recently passed Germany to become the nation producing the most wind power. Up to 20% of our nation’s electricity could be generated by wind power by 2030.
While this is encouraging news, we in the United States were late to the table, and missed business opportunities because of it. Powerful oil and gas lobbyists and conservative politicians retarded our nation’s investment in conservation and alternative energy at an opportune time. Ronald Reagan dismantled the Solar Energy Research Institute in 1980 that was started by his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. President Carter unsuccessfully tried to sound the alarm for an energy crisis in the late 1970s and the need to move toward conservation, efficiency and renewable energy sources. We did not listen.
Meanwhile, Vestas, and the country of Denmark took action. The Times Science article “How Denmark Sees the World in 2012” stated that “Denmark is a world leader in wind energy, and produces more than 10% of its power from turbines. That’s meant cleaner air and greener jobs. The homegrown wind company Vestas is a world leader earning $8 billion a year, an impressive figure in a country that has barely half the population of Hong Kong.” Even Fox News acknowledged in a 2006 story that “Denmark Points Way in Alternative Energy.” “America has been outclassed, and by an unlikely competitor. In the realm of alternative energy, there is an inconspicuous European nation that could stand to teach the U.S. a few lessons — Denmark.”
According to the Vestas website: “In the 1970s during the second oil crisis, Denmark’s Vestas company began to examine the potential of the wind turbine as an alternative source of clean energy. Vestas began producing wind turbines in 1979.”
Due to our nation’s slow response to the energy crises, we missed business, environmental, and energy conservation opportunities. Vestas is now a leading provider of wind turbines in the United States and worldwide. Here in the state of Washington, at least 200 Vestas turbines are in operation at wind farms. The installed price of each commercial wind turbine is approximately $3.5 million. Granted, Vestas has U.S. assembly plants, including facilities in Oregon and Colorado, and buys U.S. made materials for its turbines, but the point is, a Danish company capitalized on this worldwide market because the U.S. had its head metaphorically in the oil sands.
As for the U.S., we are finally getting on track more than 30 years after Carter’s Energy Crisis speech. According to the American Wind Energy Association “Growth of wind power was helped by a federal stimulus package that extended a tax credit and provided other investment incentives for the industry. “ This is the kind of government leadership we need: one that bolsters energy security, conservation of natural resources and reduces the urge to get into oil wars.
Wind energy does have environmental impacts. As a bird guy, you might wonder why I support it. As it turns out, only one out of every 10,000 birds killed by humans is caused by a wind turbine. The biggest bird killers are house cats (1 billion birds/year) and building windows (up to 970 million per year). Wind turbines kill 150,000-200,000 birds per year. At the wind farm we visited, 1-2 birds per turbine are killed each year. While these bird fatalities are not good they are a reasonable trade-off given the environmental and political consequences of other forms of energy production. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Audubon “strongly supports properly-sited wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming. Wind power facilities should be planned, sited and operated to minimize negative impacts on bird and wildlife populations.” I agree.
Sources: Vestas.com website, Wind Energy and Avian Protection – Puget Sound Energy brochure, Wind Energy Facts in Washington; ; http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/upload/Washington.pdf – ; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Wind Power News, New York Times June 2012; http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/wind-power/index.html; Denmark Points Way in Alternative Energy Resources - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203293,00.html#ixzz1z17w4UxX; Time Science How Denmark Sees the World in 2012.
