China grabbing the power from wind

When I see a new wind farm going up I usually get excited, but in this case, my blood is running cold!

According to an announcement in Reuters last Thursday, October 29, a 600mw wind farm will be installed in Texas. This will be the largest wind farm in the country. That’s the good news.

To me, the bad news is that the U.S. Renewable Energy Group and Cielo Wind Power went into a joint venture agreement with China’s Shenyang Power Group (SPG). The Shenyang Power Group is financing the $1.5 billion venture. SPG was only formed in May of this year. Quite a venture for such a fledgling company.

This may seem like a benign move on the outside, but let’s look a little deeper and I think we’ll find things getting pretty scary!

First, the turbines will not be American-made turbines (like GE or Vestas) but will be Chinese-made from a one-year-old company, A Power.

In the press announcement, the venture was made to sound like it would bring “hundreds of American jobs to the area.” Indeed, it will bring about 300 temporary construction jobs to the 36,000-acre Texan countryside. After the installation is complete, about 30 permanent positions will be needed to run the facility.

Comparatively, back in China, about 2,000 manufacturing jobs will be formed with this merger.

The aspect that is really bothersome to me is that this venture is using $450 million in U.S. stimulus money! The key here is, don’t forget, China is backing most of that stimulus money. So, while they willingly lent us the money – with interest, now they are using this same money and letting us pay the interest on it! Wake up, America, or soon we will not own this land any longer!

According to Treehugger.com, it was only last week that United States officials were able to convince China to back off some of their strict policies of domestic-made materials for renewable energy on bids in their own country. Their projects require 70 percent domestic-made materials, and often they disqualified non-domestic bids on questionable grounds.

We all remember the Olympic Games a few years ago, and how it brought to light the incredible air and water pollution problems in China.

This seemed to be a wake-up call to them and they seemingly have changed their ways. China is now doing a lot of things right regarding renewable resources. They lead the U.S., and much of the world, in GREENing their domestic landscape.

One in 10 homes in China is heated with solar heaters, and this number growing by 20 percent each year. According to the World Resources Institute, China is on track to meet its main climate change target, which is a 20 percent reduction in energy intensity by the end of next year.

The Texas joint project will generate as much power as a large coal fired power plant, but we need to stop and think – who will have the power in the end.