Thanks to Laura Sorensen of SAFE Carolinas for this article.
For more information go to Offshore Wind NC.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released its 2012 annual market report on wind energy:
- 5 states now get over 10% of their electricity from wind power (South Dakota, Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wyoming).
- South Dakota has over 20% of its electricity coming from wind.
- Iowa has over 15% of its electricity coming from wind.
- 7 states have at least 4,000 wind jobs (Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, California and Michigan).
- 75,000 wind jobs have been created in the U.S., 30,000 in the manufacturing sector.
- Kansas has the most wind power under construction.
- Only 5 countries (including the U.S.) have more wind power installed than Texas.
- In the past 5 years, wind power projects and manufacturing (and supportive wind power policies) have brought in as much as $20 billion annually in private investment in the U.S.
- 35% of all new U.S. power capacity in the past 5 years has been from wind power.
- A typical U.S. wind turbine now generates 30% more electricity than a typical wind turbine 5 years ago.
- Nearly 500 new American manufacturing facilities have been built in the past 5 years.
- 6,816 megawatts (MW) of wind power capacity were installed in 2011, 31 percent higher than 2010.
- There are now 46,916 MW of wind power capacity installed in the U.S.
- There are more than 8,300 MW of wind power capacity under construction.
It’s time for NC to come out of the dark ages and use the huge wind potential on our coast.
We do have wind manufacturing jobs in NC
Some 3,000 jobs in North Carolina are threatened by the impending expiration of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) at the end of this year, according to the Southeastern Coastal Wind Coalition.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/27525-1
By the way, the PTC is a tax credit…….NOT a loan guarantee like the nuclear energy industry is given.
That said, nukes get tax credits too, but they never expire.
Laura Sorensen
S.A.F.E. Carolinas
Asheville, NC
lsredoak@gmail.com
828-665-3668
828-545-4443 (c)
working to end the nuclear power myth
Stop Duke’s proposed W.S. LEE nuclear plant!
