\nYork Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the
\nGreen Economy<\/a>,” was ricocheting<\/a> around<\/a> the
\nenviro blogosphere<\/a> last week, the American Wind Energy Association released
\nits
\nannual report<\/a> [PDF] on the state of the wind industry.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was an interesting juxtaposition—Krugman’s deep dive
\ninto the macroeconomics of an aggressive cap-and-trade or carbon-tax policy to
\nlimit greenhouse-gas emissions alongside a report from the frontlines where the
\ngreen economy is actually under construction.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What’s striking is that the wind farm–building boom
\ncontinued through the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, with a record
\n10,010 megawatts of new capacity added last year in the United States.
\nIn fact, wind energy accounted for 39 percent all new electricity generation
\nthat came online in 2009.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sure, the renewable energy tax incentives in the Obama
\nstimulus package and various state renewable-energy requirements certainly
\nhelped prime the pump. But even absent a national cap on greenhouse-gas
\nemissions, the strength of the wind industry indicates the decarbonization of
\nthe economy is already underway, if haltingly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to AWEA, 90 percent of new power generation
\nbuilt over the past five years has come from renewables and natural gas. In
\nother words, you are not likely to see many, if any, new coal-fired power
\nplants built in the coming years. California
\nregulators have prohibited big investor-owned utilities from signing long-term
\ncontracts for electricity generated by coal plants in places like Utah and Arizona, while
\nthe Golden State’s biggest coal-consuming utility,
\nthe Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has pledged to wean itself from
\nthat particular fossil fuel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And if carbon caps don’t do in other coal-fired power plant <\/p>\n Kristin Mayes, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission, <\/p>\n Wind-turbine farms, <\/p>\n Where the wind do blow<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The knock against <\/p>\n True enough, but the <\/p>\n In the report, <\/p>\n Maps: AWEA<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By decade’s end, <\/p>\n So, is the wind boom <\/p>\n Not at all. Turn to <\/p>\n Map: AWEA“Currently, over 200 <\/p>\n Since 2005, the <\/p>\n A cap-and-trade <\/p>\n “The inadequacy of <\/p>\n There’s an <\/p>\n Constructing that <\/p>\n “These are daunting tasks,” the report concluded. “But the Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n The problem with a green economy: economics hates the environment<\/a><\/p>\n Krugman says what political media won’t: economists agree climate action is necessary, affordable<\/a><\/p>\n
\nprojects, their voracious appetite for water may well halt expansion in the
\ndesert Southwest. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that a coal-fired
\npower plant equipped with carbon
\ncapture and storage<\/a> could consume twice as much water as a conventional
\npower plant.<\/p>\n
\nthe state’s utility regulator, told me last year that all power-plant projects
\nare being closely scrutinized for their water use. “If one of our utilities wanted to build a new coal plant, we would be
\ntalking very much about water issues as well as cap-and-trade,” she said.<\/p>\n
\nof course, use no water in electricity production. AWEA estimates that by
\ndisplacing fossil-fuel power, wind farms saved 15 billion gallons of water in
\n2009.<\/p>\n
\nwind is that despite the huge increases in capacity that have made the U.S. the
\nworld’s biggest wind power—with more than 35,000 megawatts installed—all
\nthose turbines still satisfy less than 2 percent of the nation’s demand for
\nelectricity.<\/p>\n
\npicture changes if you take a state-by-state look. Iowa, for instance, relies on wind farms to
\ngenerate 14.2 percent of its electricity, according to the wind industry
\nreport. Wind power supplies 9.4 percent
\nof Minnesota’s electricity, 8.1 percent of North Dakota’s, and 6.4 percent of Oregon’s.<\/p>\n
\nthere’s a series of color-coded maps of wind-farm installations in the United States
\nbetween 2000 and 2009. Those states with significant numbers of turbines are
\ncolored in shades of blue, those with few or none are white. At the beginning
\nof the decade, broad swaths of the country were blank slates, with California the only dark
\nblue state along with a handful of light blue states.<\/p>\n
\nmost of the West and wind-swept Great Plains
\nstates as well as parts of the Northeast were a sea of blue of varying hues.
\nOnly the wind-poor Southeast and a handful of other states remained as white spots
\non the map.<\/p>\n
\nonly benefiting the blue states?<\/p>\n
\na map of wind-related manufacturing and the red states are a pincushion of red
\ndots from Arkansas to Georgia to Virginia, each dot indicating a factory.<\/p>\n
\nfacilities across the U.S.
\nsupply to the wind industry, and this figure does not capture the many
\nadditional facilities at the sub-supplier level,” the report states. “Wind manufacturing
\nfacilities can be found in every region of the United States, and include major
\nnew wind-dedicated facilities and established businesses that have diversified into
\nthe wind-energy industry.”<\/p>\n
\nnumber of turbine makers doing business in the U.S. has tripled from five to 15.
\nThe wind industry currently employs 85,000 people, according to the report, a
\nfigure that remained flat in 2009 after growing rapidly in previous years. Texas
\nremains the place to get a wind job, with more than 10,000 people employed in
\nthe industry.<\/p>\n
\nmarket would certainly boost the fortunes of the wind industry, but emissions
\ntrading probably can’t solve one of the biggest obstacles to further expansion—the lack of transmission to connect far-flung wind farms to population centers.<\/p>\n
\nthe nation’s electric grid is a major impediment to the continued growth of the
\nwind industry,” the report noted. “Many wind projects that have connected to
\nthe grid are forced to curtail a significant amount of their output or are
\nfacing low or even negative electric prices because there is inadequate
\ntransmission to carry their full output.”<\/p>\n
\nastounding 300,000 megawatts worth of planned projects seeking connection to
\nthe grid, only a fraction of which is likely to get built due to transmission
\nconstraints, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\ntransmission will be akin to building the interstate highway system of the past
\ncentury, and will involve juggling a slew of competing local, state, and federal
\ninterests—a task the market alone is unlikely to facilitate and finance.<\/p>\n
\nprogress made in 2009 suggests an industry that is at the cusp of new growth,
\nand new opportunity.”<\/p>\n