AWEA CEO Denise Bode moderating the roundtable with Governors Culver of Iowa, Doyle of Wisconsin, Granholm of Michigan, and Strickland of Ohio at WINDPOWER 2009 in Chicago.
Boone was absolutely floored by the attendance at WINDPOWER 2009. The world’s largest annual conference went from 13,000 attendees in 2008 to more than 23,000 this year.
Isn’t that unbelievable! It really is all about hope. And that’s part of what Boone has done in his messaging over the last nine months. He’s told people a story about having an American energy policy and about building American jobs and using American ingenuity to really develop a brand-new manufacturing base.
I think that message has gotten out far and wide. The president delivered that message as he was running for office, and many members of Congress have delivered that message. So I think there is a broad sense of hope.
Over the past few years, wind energy has become a much more viable option, too.
It absolutely has. I think from the standpoint of the technology being really ready to deploy. I think we’re there on that. We have policymakers really focused on it. And then fortunately we have brilliant spokesmen like Boone developing an energy plan that’s not dependent on some other country telling us what to do.
Establishing an energy plan is long overdue.
Right now we have 300,000 megawatts of wind projects that are in line around the country with the various power pools queued up and ready to be put on the transmission grid when there’s sufficient capacity to put it on. That’s enough to have or meet the 20 to 25 percent of our electric supply target with wind alone.
Many see wind energy not just as a power source but as an enormous opportunity for economic growth.
There’s a lot of interest in wind being created by the manufacturing jobs. We have facilities, either manufacturing or wind farms, in 48 states right now. Last year we added 55 new manufacturing facilities and 35,000 new jobs. Look at the new facilities being announced in Arkansas. Look at Kansas where Siemens just announced a major new facility. And Iowa! Iowa has nine manufacturing facilities in that state. Gov. Culver of Iowa is the co-chairman of the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition. You talk about an advocate for American energy.
When the Pickens Plan caught up with Tom Friedman, he said he believes that one of the most important economic opportunities for our country is to develop opportunities in renewable and alternative energies not only to power America but to export that technology around the world.
I think that is really the story. The story is about jobs in the U.S. and about creating a brand-new manufacturing base at a time when we’re losing manufacturing jobs. Wind energy manufacturing is a perfect complement to what we need right now because the auto industry and the component manufacturers in the auto industry are losing jobs. The industry is contracting, and the people who build all the components for wind turbines have the same skill set. So it’s an industry that can transition from making autos over to making the 8,000 parts that go into a wind turbine. So it’s a perfect opportunity for us to really change things.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE