OOPS!
Posted on 06/26/2014 11:33:09 AM PDT by MichCapCon
A few years ago, Vice President Joe Biden called a wind turbine facility in Saginaw one of the top "100 Recovery Act Projects that are Changing America."
In 2010, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awarded Merrill Technologies Group a $22 million advanced energy manufacturing tax credit that then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm's office said was used to buy advanced manufacturing equipment needed to create wind turbine components in a facility in Saginaw. The Recovery Act also gave Merrill Technologies another $3 million.
The former governor trumpeted the facility as the future of Michigan's economy that would help create 89,918 clean energy jobs.
The facility produced one wind turbine that triggered news reports around the country.
And then?
The facility "never got started," said Michael Shore, spokesman for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., in an email he sent in May in response to questions about the project.
Yet, that hasn't stopped wind power advocates around the country from touting the project as a success.
The American Wind Energy Association, a national trade association based in Washington, D.C., still cited the Saginaw facility in its 2014 update on wind manufacturing in the state.
Saginaw Future Inc., which is a public-private alliance that includes the city of Saginaw and 15 local municipalities, cited the wind turbine facility on its website, stating that the expectation is the facility "will become a major supplier for Michigan-made wind turbines … "
Andrea Fisher, a spokeswoman for Merrill Technologies, said the company was eligible for, but did not receive, the $22 million advanced energy manufacturing tax credit from the Recovery Act.
Merrill did receive $3 million from the Recovery Act, which the company matched with its own $3 million. That equipment is not being used for building parts for wind turbines but is being used for other manufacturing purposes, Fisher said.
In a presentation in May at the World Energy Innovation Forum, former Gov. Granholm included the Saginaw facility project as contributing to the inaccurate 89,000 clean energy jobs in Michigan figure.
"It does not surprise me that wind power proponents point to this as a 'success story,' " said James Taylor, senior fellow for environmental policy with the Heartland Institute. "The reason being is wind subsidies across the board have been wasteful boondoggles that produce little wind power, fewer jobs, but tremendous economic hardship. Wind power so-called 'jobs created' are merely jobs purloined from conventional energy companies and come at the expense of jobs throughout the entire economy."
Lindsay North of American Wind Energy Association and Tom Miller, spokesman for Saginaw Future, did not respond to requests for comment.
A friend is the maintenance electrician for the local wind farm here. The most important part of his job each day is to sweep the grounds for bird carcasses and to get rid of them so that the public doesn’t see the dead birds.
Wind power is just another Green bullsh!t project.
When government gets to pick the “winners”, taxpayers are the losers.
“A few years ago, Vice President Joe Biden called a wind turbine facility in Saginaw one of the top ‘100 Recovery Act Projects that are Changing America.’”
It strikes me that Joe Biden is the George Costanza of politics. If you just did the exact opposite of Joe’s instincts, you would make the right decision 100% of the time.
Now if they could only recover the heat from that fire...
LOL!!!
Unless MI is much warmer than Texas in the winter, wind power is very inefficient in frigid weather. In a very cold spell in Texas in Jan. and Feb. .of 2010, Texas was forced to buy power from Mexico to make up for the decreased production from the state’s extensive windmill farms. Naturally, Mexico gouged us unmercifully, and Teas consumers spent tens of millions to stay warm.
Funny,
Who would have thought Saginaw was so rich in wind energy?.
Not only that, Wind Power is ALWAYS a Massive Failure!
That's right.
And no CO2 emissions.
Watching global warmers' heads explode is a bonus.
Radar beams could protect bats from wind turbines
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jul/17/radar-bat-wind-turbine
That's the same amount that a 550 families making 40,000 dollars a year would make. Are we having fun yet!
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