Installing Siemens 3.6 MW x 120 meter rotor wind turbines recently, in Great Britain. For perspective, the hub height is 90 meters off the surface at Walney2 (yellow part is 20 meters above the water, white tower is 70 meters long, blades are about 58 meters long). Impressive!
One of the reasons for the lack of investment in the wind biz in the U.S. in general and especially in NY State has been the "availability" of other investments, particularly property, both residential and business. But, looks like that was significantly not so (in that, there really was very little REAL viable investments to be made in real estate), and the investors who put a lot of the money into real estate via "Mortgage Backed Securities" (MBS) in the last decade were defrauded by the hundreds of billions of dollars. Looks like counties were also defrauded out of mortgage recording fees for good measure, too, though that seems to be chump change in comparison.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/
So these never were valid investments. Meanwhile, the hundreds of billions worth of investments in wind turbines needed to replace pollution sourced electricity and the bonds that should have been issued for mass transit construction (and thus replacing oil consumption) never happened in the U.S. Nor did the jobs associated with real wealth creation that go with renewable energy and non-petroleum based transportation.
So far, this story is largely buried, and the public remains unaware of this. And so far, almost all of the perps of these frauds have got away with their crimes, and with a lot of money too. Crime did pay very nicely, while our country will pay for this bad investment "in the concept of air" versus investing in things that require manufacturing, and avoid the need to pollute to make electricity.
Also, along those lines:
More nuke FUBAR - no, not another Fuku type event, just more "drip,drip, drip" on these wretchedly bad investments (money, morality, ecology, job creation, lots of levels....):
http://my.firedoglake.com/somethingthedogsaid/2011/06/21/48-of-65-us-nuclear-power-stations-have-leaked-tritium/
And on the good side of things:
Ontario (unlike NY State), where RENEWABLES = LOTS OF JOBS:
http://www.canwea.ca/media/release/release_e.php?newsId=118 (also downloadable report)
And ANOTHER darn offshore wind farm gets commissioned and is now "ON" in Europe:
http://www.offshorewind.biz/2011/06/21/walney-1-offshore-wind-farm-in-full-operation-uk/
This one is "only 184 MW, "only" cost about $US 800 million to install, "only" created about 13000 job-yrs of direct employment, and is only Part 1 of the Walney complex, with part 2 now under construction:
http://www.offshorewind.biz/2011/06/21/two-turbine-installation-vessels-install-eight-wind-turbines-at-walney-2-uk/. Part two will also create a similar number of jobs, and in combination, Walney 1 and 2 will displace the natural gas that would have been needed to supply
a 165 MW natural gas facility running at 90% of the time, and displacing 8.8 billion cubic feet of methane that Britain would otherwise have to import in return for the export of $53 million/yr at today's low prices (historically, the price should at least be double the present price) - money that Britain would also have to borrow, as their imports now exceed their exports, significantly.
Sound familiar?
Geez, you only have your unemployment to lose, in return for installing renewables on a significant scale. Do you like all that unemployment that seems to be so abundant on the Niagara Frontier these days? So what's the problem? We could make such turbines, and make the vessels that installed them. We could make items like this substation and the underwater electric cables that connect this substation to land, and also the vessel that installed this unit, too:
http://www.offshorewind.biz/2011/06/21/rambiz-heavy-lift-barge-installs-top-section-of-walney-2-substation-uk/
That we aren't helps explain the lack of employment, and high unemployment in these here parts.
TVO
