steel mills/wind farms/PA.

[irishbobcat]

PA. Turning Old Steel Mills Into Wind Farms. Why Not Ohio?

July 23, 2008

The McClatchy-Tribune Regional News reported last week the year Jim Bauer was born -- 1952 -- a massive steel mill was rising atop a former asparagus farm in Lower Bucks County.
Bauer would spend most of his working life in U.S. Steel's Fairless Works -- until he was forced to retire in 2002, marking the end of an era.

Now, it's the beginning of another, and Bauer, 56, is part of that, too.

It's about wind.

Every morning at 6, Bauer is back at work in one of the old U.S. Steel buildings, heading a team that makes giant hubs for wind turbines.

Gamesa Technology Corp. Inc., part of a Spanish company that's one of the world's largest turbine makers, took over part of the property -- now the Keystone Industrial Port Complex -- in 2006 and is a key player in its transformation from rust to green.

Across the state, wind has become the dominant renewable-energy fuel.
Nine commercial wind farms with a total of 175 turbines have a capacity of 294 megawatts -- enough to power 78,000 households. Five more wind farms under construction will double that by year's end.

About 70 more projects are in development.

"Right now, it's the cheapest renewable resource available," said Charlie Young, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "It's on par, in some cases, with traditional sources of energy."

Indeed, as those fuels rise in price, wind remains free.
Once a plant is built, "you know what its costs are going to be for 25 years," said Tom Tuffey, energy expert for the advocacy group PennFutures.

Nationwide, wind provides just 1.2 percent of electricity needs, but that's changing.
Last year, with $9 billion worth of new projects, U.S. wind power capacity increased 46 percent. Wind accounted for about a third of all new electric generation.

The projects were enough to power 1.5 million homes.

The national wind market is now the fastest-growing in the world.

The federal Department of Energy recently brokered a research collaboration between Gamesa and five other turbine makers aimed at getting 20 percent of the country's electricity needs from wind by 2030. 

Although Pennsylvania's winds hardly rank with those of the Great Plains states -- the "Saudi Arabia of wind" -- the state still has enough to power five million homes, Gov. Rendell has said.

Pennsylvania has "a whole host of advantages when it comes to developing and operating wind farms," said Paul Copleman, spokesman for Iberdrola Renewables, another Spanish company, which has an East Coast base in Radnor and operates wind farms.

(Last month, Iberdrola and Gamesa signed what they called the world's largest turbine contract, representing a capacity of 4,500 megawatts. The turbines will go to Spain, Europe, Mexico and the United States.)

Pennsylvania's Appalachian ridges -- places with names like Wind Gap -- have consistent winds and access to transmission lines, Copleman said. "A lot of places have one but not the other."

Last year, the state ranked 10th in new installations and 14th in total wind power.

One impetus is a requirement that 18 percent of the state's energy come from alternative and renewable sources by 2020.

Proponents tout wind as pollution-free electricity.

It's also seen as an economic boon for rural areas and -- like Lower Bucks -- former industrial centers.

In April, ground was broken at a former Cambria County strip mine where 25 turbines will be installed.

The transition from coal to wind is a sign of the times, state officials said.

The $34 million Gamesa plant in Bucks County -- another is in Western Pennsylvania -- is running 24 hours a day, six days a week.

Its 600 employees, many former steelworkers still represented by their old union, staff three shifts.

Every turbine they build at least through 2010 -- about 500 a year -- is sold.

Wind turbines have become bigger and more powerful. Gamesa's two-megawatt behemoths can each power more than 500 homes.

A tower and its blades top out at 404 feet, 26 feet higher than the towers of the Walt Whitman Bridge.

The main obstacle to growth is the supply of components -- 8,000 per turbine, most of them made overseas, said Gamesa USA's chief executive officer, Julius Steiner. Ball bearings come from China, gearboxes from Spain.

Steiner wants to build supply-chain clusters around the plant. "If that happens, you're talking about a lot of jobs."

It could employ others like Jim Bauer, who worked at U.S. Steel for more than two decades and loved it.

When forced into early retirement, he attended computer school.

One day, he saw a help-wanted ad that offered travel abroad and a high-paying job in a new venture. He thought it was a hoax.

It wasn't. In March 2006, Gamesa sent Bauer to Spain for three months of training.

For him, the pay isn't as good. At U.S. Steel, he said, he could make more than $70,000, counting incentives and forced overtime.

At Gamesa, it's more like $40,000. But he has his pension. And, truth is, he loves it.

"I'm proud," Bauer said. "We need to find a way to produce electricity without emissions. I think about that all the time."

U.S. Steel still has 90 employees in a nearby building. They galvanize steel, coating it with zinc to prevent rust.

But it's all that remains of the giant plant that, at its height in 1974, employed 8,000, the company said.

Oddly enough, Bauer now works about 1,000 yards away from his old building.

A few weeks ago, they tore it down. Bauer took photos.

Then he went back to work.

As the Independent Green Party Candidate for Congress in Ohio's 6th district, why can't we turn our closed steel mills and old factories in Youngstown and the Ohio River back into working, productive renewable energy plants like in Pennsylvania?

Why does PA. Have the vision for the future and our current Congressman Charlie Wilson lack it? Is it because Mr. Wilson is a conservative Democrat who does not want to put workers back to work in blue-collar Green industry jobs because black coal lobbyists fill Mr. Wilson's pockets with PAC money?

If elected to Congress, I will see that Ohio and the Ohio River Valley becomes a major player in renewable energy.

Dennis Spisak- Independent Green Party WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS- Ohio's 6th District.

Campaign site: Http://votespisak.org/electspisak.tripod.com

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