<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 2089 -- 3/05/2010 >>>>>

web version
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/03/05/8-out-of-10-stimulus-dollars-go-ov
erseas/

The good news is that the Obama stimulus money targeted for green
industries is creating jobs. The bad news is that most of the jobs are in
China. Two video reports describe what is happening. There are companion
articles to the videos that fill in more details of the story. The video
and text articles aren’t the same so to get the complete picture check
both of them out.

    Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and
    Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding
    the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million
    homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly
    80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers
    of wind turbines.

    So Where Are the Jobs?

    "Most of the jobs are going overseas," said Russ Choma at
    the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He analyzed which
    foreign firms had accepted the most stimulus money.
    "According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been
    created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been
    created in the U.S."
    New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs, ABC News
    Reports, Jonathan Karl, Feb. 9, 2010


article:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbh0rS2_fw


The story continued when an ABC News affiliate in San Diego did a follow up
story with some very clever investigative reporting. Who would have ever
thought of actually going to an office of one of the companies that are
receiving billions of taxpayer dollars?

    A-Power Energy Generation Systems is one example. The company
    lists a downtown San Diego office suite as its business and
    mailing address in filings with the Securities and Exchange
    Commission. However, that office suite is vacant.

    Foreign Firms Benefitting From U.S. Green Energy Funding,
    KGTV 10, February 8, 2010

http://www.10news.com/news/22501136/detail.html
video and article on same page
Foreign Firms Benefitting From U.S. Green Energy Funding, February 8, 2010


These stories were originated by an organization called the "Investigative
Reporting Workshop", which is affiliated with the School of Communication
at American University. They have an article on the website that adds more
fuel to the fire: "Renewable energy money still going abroad, despite
criticism from Congress, by Russ Choma, February 8th, 2010.

    The Workshop was the first to report last October that more than 80
    percent of the first $1 billion in grants to wind energy companies
    went to foreign firms. Since then, the administration has stopped
    making announcements of new grants to wind, solar and geothermal
    companies, but has handed out another $1 billion, bringing the
    total given out to $2.1 billion and the total that went to
    companies based overseas to more than 79 percent.

    In fact, the largest grant made under the program so far, a $178
    million payment on Dec. 29, went to Babcock & Brown, a bankrupt
    Australian company that built a Texas wind farm using turbines
    made by a Japanese company.


Of course the Chinese stuck their hooks into Texas also.


    The same day the Workshop’s first reported on this story a
    consortium of American and Chinese companies announced a deal to
    build a $1.5 billion wind farm in Texas, using imported Chinese
    turbines. Company officials said they planned to collect $450
    million in stimulus grants for the project. The deal would
    create dozens of jobs in the U.S. and thousands in China. The
    news provoked outrage among lawmakers, particularly after the
    Energy Department seemed to take a neutral stance, declining
    to say whether it would reject such an application.

The tragedy with all of this is that most of the money isn’t going to go
to home grown crooks -- it’s going to fund scams in other countries.
Americans will get a few of the leftover crumbs when and if the foreign
companies decide to hire workers to install the equipment, but even then
there is no guarantee that they will hire Americans -- remember the Texas
bridge welders from Italy?

If Obama and Congress insist of throwing billions of dollars around, why
aren’t they making sure that the only pigs at the trough are U.S.
citizens?


LINKS

http://www.vdare.com/sanchez/091123_italian_welders.htm
Italian Welders Work On Dallas Bridge -- Texans Remain Jobless


http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/about/
Investigative Reporting Workshop


http://www.american.edu/soc/
School of Communication at American University


ARTICLES COPIED BELOW


http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949
New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs


http://www.10news.com/news/22501136/detail.html
Foreign Firms Benefitting From U.S. Green Energy Funding


http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-g
oing-overseas/story/renewable-energy-money-still-going-abroad/
Renewable energy money still going abroad, despite criticism from Congress
(text only -- go to web page for charts and graphs)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbh0rS2_fw

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949

New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs
Millions Have Been Invested in Wind Farms, but That Hasn't Brought Jobs
By JONATHAN KARL

Feb. 9, 2010

Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus
money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new
report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University's
School of Communication in Washington, D.C.

Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms
to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that
nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind
turbines.

So Where Are the Jobs?

"Most of the jobs are going overseas," said Russ Choma at the Investigative
Reporting Workshop. He analyzed which foreign firms had accepted the most
stimulus money. "According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been
created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S."

Even with the infusion of so much stimulus money, a recent report by
American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing
jobs last year.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the flow of money to foreign companies
an outrage, because the stimulus, he said, was intended to create jobs
inside the United States.

"This is one of those stories in Washington that when you tell people five
miles outside the Beltway, or anywhere else in America, they cannot believe
it," Schumer told ABC News, "It makes people lose faith in government, and
it frankly infuriates me."

Matt Rogers, the senior adviser to the Secretary of Energy for the Recovery
Act, denied there was a problem.

"The recovery act is creating jobs in the U.S. for American workers," said
Rogers, "That is what the recovery act is about, that is what it is doing.
Every dollar from the recovery act is going to create jobs for the American
workers here in the U.S."

How Did This Happen?

Several of the large European turbine manufacturers had limited
manufacturing facilities in the United States, but there was nothing in the
stimulus plan that required that the turbines, or any other equipment
needed for the wind farms, be made here, said Rogers. There are strict "Buy
America" provisions in the Recovery Act, but this Green Energy Stimulus
initiative turned the existing tax credits into cash grants, bypassing the
"Buy America" provision.

Iberdrola, one of the largest operators of renewable energy worldwide, is
based in Spain and has received the most U.S. stimulus dollars -- $577
million. It buys some of its turbines from another Spanish manufacturer,
Gamesa, which has a U.S. connection. Gamesa has two facilities to
manufacture turbine blades in Pennsylvania, but the company said the market
forced it to temporarily lay off nearly 100 workers.

Eric Sheesley was one of those laid off from the Gamesa plant before
Thanksgiving. "When we're employing other countries, we can't feed our kids
at home. It gets hard you know." Sheesley had a glimmer of hope when a
letter arrived this week telling him to report back to work next week.

One reason so much money is going overseas is that there is not much of a
wind power industry in the United States -- only two major American
manufacturers make wind turbines: General Electric Energy and Clipper Wind
based in Carpinteria, Calif. Even those companies do a significant amount
of their manufacturing overseas. General Electric told ABC News that GE's
Renewable Energy business has 3,000 employees around the world, 1,350 here
in the United States.

Schumer said the way to revitalize the domestic wind power industry and to
create green jobs is to require that at least some of the turbine equipment
to be made in the United States.
An American Farm With Chinese Jobs

Perhaps the most controversial wind project is one that has yet to receive
stimulus money.

A Chinese company called A-power is helping to build a massive $1.5 billion
wind farm in West Texas. The consortium behind the project expects to get
$450 million in stimulus money.

Walt Hornaday, an American partner on the project, said it would create
some American jobs. "Our estimation," he said, "is that we are going to
have on the order of 300 construction jobs just within the fence of the
project."

But that's in addition to 2,000 manufacturing jobs -- many of them in
China.

Lauren Reynolds, a reporter at ABC's San Diego affiliate 10 News, paid a
visit to the vacant office of A-power.

To read more about how wind energy companies in San Diego are forced to
spend their federal stimulus dollars abroad, go to today's San Diego
Tribune and the Watch Dog Institute's Web page.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.10news.com/news/22501136/detail.html

Foreign Firms Benefitting From U.S. Green Energy Funding

POSTED: 12:38 pm PST February 8, 2010
UPDATED: 7:22 pm PST February 8, 2010
SAN DIEGO -- Cannon Power Group, based in Rancho Santa Fe, is among the
minority of American firms benefitting from millions of dollars in economic
stimulus grants dedicated to green energy.

The company's white turbines, which generate wind energy, dot the landscape
along the Colombia River in Washington state. The project, known as Windy
Flats, is one of the largest wind projects in the U.S. and will be funded
by an expected $170 million in green energy stimulus money.

"If you build the project, then the grants will come," explained Gary
Hardke, President of Cannon Power Group.

Hardke said the economic stimulus money is allowing his company to expand
its project and put more people to work. He also said he is not surprised
that American firms are falling behind on cashing in on the stimulus money.
Of the $2 billion set aside for green energy, three quarters have gone to
foreign firms.

Hardke cited foreign firms' preparedness to take advantage of the U.S.
government program.

"It's hard to be a successful wind energy developer without a big
checkbook," he explained.

The big check book in previous decades has been opened by European
governments who have invested heavily in wind energy in the past. For
example, Spain is a world leader. On a windy day, half the energy needed
can come from wind.

"They've poured billions of dollars into renewable energy over the last two
decades," Hardke pointed out.

At the same time, past U.S. government support has wavered. Now that it's
the U.S. investing heavily, Hardke said foreign-based firms are more
established to collect the money.

A-Power Energy Generation Systems is one example. The company lists a
downtown San Diego office suite as its business and mailing address in
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, that office
suite is vacant.

The company is based in China and is part of a consortium building a wind
farm in Texas that may qualify for federal stimulus money. The project is
reportedly generating 300 jobs in the U.S., 800 jobs in China.

Foreign firms like A-Power are not barred from the stimulus money as one
basic qualification is met, according to Hardke.

"The site of the project has to be in the United States," he said.

Cannon is developing wind power in Baja California that won't qualify for
stimulus money.

For its Washington state project, while the firm is American, that does not
mean all stimulus money it receives will stay in America.

Of the $19.4 million already collected from the federal government, Hardke
said about half was paid to Siemens, a German firm which makes the wind
turbines.

Hardke said the main U.S. manufacturers were out of stock or did not make
the size that Cannon needed.

NOTE: This story was reported by the Watchdog Institute in a collaborative
effort with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in
Washington, D.C., and 10News. A version of this story will be published in
The San Diego Union-Tribune Tuesday. For more on the Watchdog Institute's
story, visit www.watchdoginstitute.org/story.html

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-g
oing-overseas/story/renewable-energy-money-still-going-abroad/

(text only -- go to web page for charts and graphs)

Renewable energy money still going abroad, despite criticism from Congress

By Russ Choma

Monday, February 8th, 2010 | ShareThis

The Investigative Reporting Workshop reported this story in coordination
with ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer and the Watchdog Institute,
a non-profit investigative journalism group based at San Diego State
University.foreign vs. domestic

Money from the 2009 stimulus bill to help support the renewable energy
industry continues to flow overseas, despite Congressional criticism and
calls for change, according to a new analysis of the program by the
Investigative Reporting Workshop.

The Workshop was the first to report last October that more than 80 percent
of the first $1 billion in grants to wind energy companies went to foreign
firms. Since then, the administration has stopped making announcements of
new grants to wind, solar and geothermal companies, but has handed out
another $1 billion, bringing the total given out to $2.1 billion and the
total that went to companies based overseas to more than 79 percent.

In fact, the largest grant made under the program so far, a $178 million
payment on Dec. 29, went to Babcock & Brown, a bankrupt Australian company
that built a Texas wind farm using turbines made by a Japanese company.

The same day the Workshop’s first reported on this story a consortium of
American and Chinese companies announced a deal to build a $1.5 billion
wind farm in Texas, using imported Chinese turbines. Company officials said
they planned to collect $450 million in stimulus grants for the project.
The deal would create dozens of jobs in the U.S. and thousands in China.
The news provoked outrage among lawmakers, particularly after the Energy
Department seemed to take a neutral stance, declining to say whether it
would reject such an application.
The key word is 'jobs'

"In all due respect I remind the secretary (of Energy) there is a
four-letter word associated with the stimulus -- J-O-B-S," Sen. Charles
Schumer, D-N.Y., told ABC News who interviewed him for a report done in
coordination with the Workshop’s ongoing investigation. "Very few jobs
here, lots of jobs in China. That is not what I intended or any other
legislator who voted for the stimulus intended."

If companies want to buy Chinese turbines, they can, Schumer said, but they
shouldn’t do it with tax dollars that were earmarked for jumpstarting an
merican industry.

"It is fine that the Chinese make them. But why don’t we use the stimulus
money to start building up an industry to build them here, that was the
very point of the stimulus," Schumer told ABC. "No one even imagined, given
how strongly the stimulus advertised jobs in America, that this would
happen. I am befuddled that it happened and even more befuddled that the
Energy Department is not backing off."

The administration and the wind energy lobby now say that the aim of the
program was not to create jobs immediately, despite its being included in
the stimulus package, but rather to help support long-term investments in
renewable manufacturing in the United States. The program, which cost $1.05
billion in the year ended last Sept. 30, would get another $3.08 billion
this fiscal year, and will peak in 2011 with an outlay of $4.46 billion,
according to the president's proposed budget released in early February.

Rob Gramlich, vice-president for public policy at the American Wind Energy
Association , the industry’s main lobbying and advocacy group which
counts all of the foreign companies that have received funding thus far as
members, told the Workshop the grants were only intended as a lifeline to
keep the industry afloat during tough times.

"We strongly support the policy and are giving the adminstration and
Congress a lot of credit for putting it in place and redesigning how it
worked -- but it wasn’t a long-term jobs policy and it wasn’t really
intended to be a long-term jobs policy," he said.

In fact, in recent months, both U.S. and foreign renewable energy
manufacturing companies with production in the United States have either
closed or slowed down production.

The Danish company, Vestas, said it was halting production at a wind
turbine blade plant in Windsor, Colo. The company said it would probably
have to slow development of two other facilities planned for the same area.
Gamesa, a Spanish wind turbine company, said it was laying off about half
of the remaining workers at a Pennsylvania production facility. Two major
solar production efforts in the U.S. shuttered -- GE Solar in Newark, Del.,
and Evergreen Solar in Marlborough, Mass. Evergreen , the recipient of
state and federal incentives, announced it would restart production in
China.

Joan Fitzgerald, director of the law, policy and society program at
Northeastern University and author of several books on green economic
opportunity, said the recent trends in the industry are depressing and
attempting to stimulate the field with a grant program that sends so much
money to foreign-owned companies doesn’t help.

"I still feel that with wind there’s some potential but I don’t know
how to get solar production in this country. I think we’ve lost it," she
told the Workshop.
How the grant program works

The grant money is distributed under a program administered by the Energy
Department and Treasury, and is supposed to reward companies for investing
in renewable energy facilities to encourage them to reinvest in America.
But there are few American companies to take advantage of the program and
with no restrictions on how or where the money can be spent -- and no
discretion in who it can be given to -- the helping hand from taxpayers
seems to be largely bypassing American workers.

A previous report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop published in
October found that about $860 million in stimulus money had gone to foreign
wind companies alone. That pattern has continued, with now just under $1.6
billion -- or 73 percent -- awarded to foreign-owned wind companies. The
majority of turbines purchased with the money have been built by foreign
manufacturers.

Including other forms of energy, like solar and geothermal, 79 percent
($1.71 billion) has gone to foreign companies.grants

The law authorizing the grants is broad and requires only that companies
bring a power plant that qualifies as renewable energy online after Jan. 1,
2009 or starts construction before Dec. 31. There is nothing in the law
requiring that the money be spent in the United States. (See the text of
the stimulus section .)
Not a jobs program, a lifeline

The stimulus package, as a whole and specifically this program, has been
hailed by advocates and administration officials as a job creator, but
following the Workshop’s report and letters from Schumer and Sen. Kit
Bond (R-Mo.), the message was refined to focus on long-term benefits.

In a message posted on his Facebook page Energy Secretary Steven Chu wrote
that the point of the grant program was, "ensuring America leads the world
in creating jobs in manufacturing the parts that go into wind farms" and,
eventually, even export components to foreign wind farms.

But before manufacturing -- and the jobs that come with it -- can be
established, demand for the product needs to be established, Chu wrote. The
grants "provide the precondition to jump start the manufacturing," he
explained.

In an interview with ABC News, Matt Rogers, Chu's senior advisor on
stimulus, disputed the Investigative Reporting Workshop's finding that as
much as 80 percent of the program's grant money is going to foreign firms.

"I think the first observation is I don't think the data in that specific
case is correct. If you take a look at where the jobs are - the jobs are in
the United States," Rogers said. "Every dollar from the Recovery Act is
going to create jobs for American workers here in the United States."

While some construction jobs are created when a wind farm is built, they
last, on average, nine months. Additionally, many of the wind farms that
received money were online or close to completion by the time the stimulus
bill was passed.As the outcry over the Chinese proposal indicates, more
significant than the wind farm owners that have collected the money is
where they spent it-- the origin of the turbines they install. Most of the
economic activity created by investing in wind energy comes from the
turbine manufacturing; of the 1,807 turbines erected on 28 wind farms
receiving grants, foreign-owned manufacturers built 1,219.

The turbines are composed of three major parts --steel towers,
fiber-composite blades and nacelles, which house the most sophisticated
components, including the generation, transmission and braking systems. A
study by the Renewable Energy Policy Project , a think-tank that advocates
renewable energy technology research, estimates that for every 1 megawatt
of wind energy that is developed, 4.3 jobs are created: 0.6 in operation
and maintenance of the wind farms; .7 for the installation of new turbines;
and 3 in manufacturing.

The 1,219 turbines built by foreign-owned manufacturers have a potential
capacity of 2,279.5 megawatts. Using the REPP estimate, the installation of
these turbines may have created as many as 6,838 manufacturing jobs
overseas.

When the wind energy association released its 2009 year-end report on Jan.
26, association president Denise Bode heralded the installation of 10
gigawatts of new wind capacity,but acknowledged there had actually been a
net loss in manufacturing jobs. Bode told USA Today she estimates the
manufacturing job loss at 1,500 jobs. About as many jobs in construction
and operation were created, but construction on all projects that have
received money ended long before the grants were made. For some of the
projects, construction was complete even before the stimulus bill was
passed in February.

On the White House's stimulus blog, an administration official hailed the
wind energy association's report as a sign the, "recovery winds are
blowing" but made no mention of the job losses.
Who got what?

Any type of renewable energy facility put into service after Jan. 1, 2009
is eligible for the grant program -- outlined under Section 1603 of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- but since the first
payments were made on Sept. 1, $1.88 billion has gone to wind companies.

The single largest grant under the program, reported by the Energy
Department on Dec. 29, was $178 million for the Texas Gulf Wind farm in
Sarita, Texas. The farm is owned by a bankrupt Australian infrastructure
and energy investment firm Babcock & Brown . All 118 turbines erected on
the farm were built by Mitsubishi -- a Japanese firm that does not build
wind components in the United States.

Iberdrola Renewables, the American subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola
S.A., has collected more money than any other company -- $577 million. The
company announced it expects to collect another $430 million in 2010. In
total, Spanish companies have collected $708.3 million. Utilities owned by
Portuguese, German and British companies also have collected funding.

Horizon-EDPR, the American-subsidiary Portuguese utility Energias de
Portugal’s renewable division, has received $277.5 million.

Eurus Energy America, the U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese firm, received $91
million in stimulus money for its Bull Creek wind farm in Texas. The farm
consists of 180 Mitsubishi turbines. Illustrating the often international
nature of deals in the U.S. wind industry, a company executive told the
Watchdog Institute that his company used RES Americas, a British firm, as
the general contractor to build its facility. Eurus is now employing EnXco,
a subsidiary of French renewable energy firm EDF Energies Nouvelles, to
operate the farm.

Five U.S. companies have received a combined $290.7 million, with First
Wind and NextEra (a subsidiary of Florida Power & Light) receiving the
largest shares, $115 million and $99.9 million, respectively. (Details on
wind projects and all renewable projects .)
Manufacturing is a complicated issue

Trying to divine whose pocket the stimulus money eventually ends up in is
difficult because of the complex nature of wind turbines. Even the
companies that have significant turbine production facilities in the United
States rely on foreign sources for many of the 8,000 components.

So, where did the parts used in these turbines come from?

In a Facebook posting, Energy Secretary Chu wrote that possibly as much as
53 percent of components used in turbines under the grant program were
manufactured in the United States. That estimate was developed by the wind
energy association based on the first 11 projects that received funding and
were cited in the Workshop’s first story. That figure does not include
any of the 18 projects that received funding after the Workshop’s
original report was published.

According to Elizabeth Salerno, the association’s director of industry
data and analysis, the association surveyed the member companies involved
with the projects and then created a formula to arrive at that calculation.
Salerno declined to provide that information to the Workshop because the
information was provided by members confidentially.

According to Salerno and Gramlich the formula that was used weighted
components by their dollar value. The association declined to provide any
of the calculations or a sample of their calculations, but did provide a
sample document showing how the dollar value of a turbine’s components
might be determined.

Gramlich said the average turbine has an overall domestic content "close to
the level of Chrysler cars." In 2008, AWEA analysts estimate that almost 50
percent of components were domestically sourced, up dramatically from only
a few years earlier.
Too big to build elsewhere

Besides the complexity of each turbine, the enormous size of many parts has
long been cited as a reason why manufacturing will eventually come to the
U.S. A turbine’s blades, for example, can reach 200 feet long and must be
fabricated and transported in one piece. Likewise, the steel towers can
weigh hundreds of tons. Moving both components even short distances can be
cumbersome and require closure of roads and specially equipped vehicles or
multiple trucks operating in tandem. But, for the same reason, it may be
easier or cheaper to ship blades or tower segments thousands of miles by
water than it is to transport them several hundred miles by road or rail.

"Everyone thought in the beginning, ‘Oh, turbines are too big to not
build here,’" said Joan Fitzgerald, a professor at Northeastern
University who specializes in green economy development and has written
several books on the subject. "There are cities up and down the west coast
and in Texas that have just totally redone their ports for importing wind
turbines. This idea that we can’t import them because they’re too big
is not the case."

By examining U.S.Customs and Border Protection records the Workshop
discovered turbine components are being imported from China, Germany, Spain
and Brazil, including even the biggest and heaviest parts like blades and
steel towers.

Although not a comprehensive review of all imports, the Workshop
investigation found numerous instances large foreign-made components being
used in the wind farms awarded grants
Wind towers arrive on ship
Photo by Nathan Sandel Used with permission

Steel towers make their way up the Columbia River, headed for the port of
Vancouver last March. They were made in Vietnam for a Danish wind company
and destined for a Portugese wind farm in Indiana that got a stimulus
grant. More of Sandel's photos.

For example, on June 1, 2009, Vestas Americas, a subsidiary of the Danish
turbine giant, unloaded 30 generators and hubs   at the port of Portage,
Ind. The pieces were destined for Meadow Lake Wind Farm, an Indiana
facility built by Portuguese-owned Horizon-EDPR. On June 19, Vestas
received shipment of 94 blades at the same port, to be sent to the same
wind farm. A few months earlier, on March 11, Vestas unloaded 72 sections
of steel towers -- some weighing in excess of 55 tons -- from the container
ship Marinus Green, at the port of Vancouver, Wash. The towers arrived in
Washington state after travelling 7,400 miles from Baria Vungtau Province,
Vietnam, where they were constructed by CS Wind -- Vietnam's leading steel
tower manufacturer. According to the bill of lading, the tower segments
were sent to Meadow Lake.

Meadow Lake was awarded $113 million in stimulus money.

According to the Customs data, Vestas has accepted at least 20 other
shipments from CS Wind in the last two years, some larger than Meadow Lake
towers.

In an interview with the Watchdog Institute, Gary Hardke, president of
Cannon Power Group, a San Diego-based wind farm developer said his company
spent more than half the $19.4 million they received in federal grant money
overseas.

Cannon partnered with German industrial giant, Siemens, to install 114
turbines at the company’s Windy Flats wind farm in Klickitat, Wash.
Cannon has announced they expect to receive more than $170 million as other
phases of the wind farm are completed.

Hardke said he couldn’t say positively where all of the components were
sourced from -- some of the steel towers were domestically made and some
were from China and Siemens told Cannon the blades were likely made in the
U.S., "but we’re not positive." The nacelles were imported from Denmark.

Hardke told the Watchdog Institute that the cost of transporting the
turbines can top $300,000 so domestic manufacturing would be preferable,
but to purchase just a nacelle that is entirely sourced domestically would
require reconfiguring the supply chain for some 3,000 components.
Struggling to keep up in the race

President Barack Obama has talked of a worldwide foot race to be the clean
energy leader. As recently as Jan. 8, he noted the United States is
struggling to keep up.

"Harnessing new forms of energy will be one of the defining challenges of
the 21st century. And unfortunately, right now, the United States, the
nation that pioneered the use of clean energy, is being outpaced by nations
around the world," Obama said in a speech. "I don’t want the industries
that yield the jobs of tomorrow to be built overseas."

Obama was announcing $2.3 billion in tax credits for manufacturers,
including foreign companies that are hoping to set up manufacturing in the
United States. Unlike the grant program investigated by the Workshop, the
administration gave out the tax credits based on how many domestic jobs
would be created.

But that program, which Obama said would create about 17,000 jobs, is short
on cash, even as the administration continues to freely hand out cash
grants to foreign wind developers, with no obligation to reinvest the money
or purchase U.S.-made turbines. The administration received over $7 billion
in requests for tax credits from manufacturers and Obama has asked Congress
to provide another $5 billion to meet that.

According to Fitzgerald and several other industry observers contacted by
the Workshop, without more innovation by U.S. companies, the manufacturing
jobs will only be as good as the foreign company that sets them up. A
recent report by the Breakthrough Institute found the U.S. will be outspent
over the next five years on green tech research and development by its
Asian competitors by a factor of four-to-one (including R&D funds included
in the cap-and-trade bill still lingering in the Senate.)

"I’d like to be positive but that’s a lot," Joan Fitzgerald said. "Look
at the difficulty Obama is having getting some things through, even with a
majority. And now you’ve got people clamoring about deficit and deficit
reduction. I don’t know how much we’ll really be able to add."

The administration’s focus should be on the manufacturing -- and making
sure it stays here -- said United Steelworker’s president Leo W. Gerard.
The trend -- in green energy as it is in all manufacturing -- is towards
sending manufacturing overseas, he said.

"If we keep following the trend lines of what’s existing, we’re going
to end up with an inability to generate real wealth," Gerard told the
Workshop. "My concern is that it’s more than wind turbines, and my
concern is how we stake out our ground and have a manufacturing strategy
for the country that will lead us back to the ability to create real
wealth."

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