Wind Power and Jobs in Michigan

Long day today, meeting in Michigan to talk about wind power and economic development. Wind would seem to be a perfect fit for the Great Lake State--many people expect it to be one of the largest sources of new manufacturing jobs in the 21st century. We know that fossil fuels are eventually going to run out and that they also carry substantial environmental costs, so there is no time like the present to be thinking about what comes next. Pennsylvania, Iowa and, most recently, Colorado have all managed to attract new wind turbine manufacturing plants in the last couple of years and there are likely to be many more built in the U.S. during the next decade--this country has a huge wind resource, with more energy than all of Saudi Arabia's oil, and it is only a matter of time until we get serious about making it into a mainstream energy supply source.

Perhaps the most interesting talk of the day came from a representative of Clipper Windpower, an Iowa-based manufacturer, who said that one of his company's major problems is keeping its supply of components flowing: "We could build more turbines if we could get the parts."