President Obama hasn’t made any indication on what he plans to say on April 30 when he reveals the fate of the Cape Code Wind Power project.

The massive wind power plan was been in the works for nearly a decade and it is now up to Obama and interior Secretary Ken Salazar whether the project will be allowed to continue.

This wind power project’s future could have far reaching ramifications for wind energy around the U.S. since there are several other big wind power projects being contemplated based on the results of whether Cape Wind gets the federal thumbs up or down.

With renewable energy like wind and solar a top priority for the Obama Administration, it seems likely that Cape Wind will get the approval it’s been seeking for so long. But, renewable energy supporters did get reason to be concerned when Obama permitted offshore natural gas drilling exploration last month while the this massive wind power project, and it’s 130 wind turbines, still sits in limbo.

The number of wind turbine parts built in the United States grew in 2008 along with the boom in the wind energy market. But despite the growth in demand for wind turbine parts, the US has continued to import the lion’s share of these parts.

Imports of wind turbine parts to the US went from $60 million worth in 2004 to $2.5 billion in 2008.
With that amount of money going to importing wind turbine parts it definitely seems like there’s a lot of growth potential for American manufacturers.

Vestas is one of the major producers of wind turbines with one fifth of all wind turbines erected in the US being built by Vestas. One of their senior vice presidents, Roby Roberts, states of the situation that, “Wind is positioned to help take a lot of those manufacturing jobs that have been lost, especially in the auto industry, and move them into the work we’re trying to do.”

Although Vestas has not made any of its turbines on American soil, Roberts stated that by 2010, they plan to build all of them in the US, with one factory currently built in Colorado and three more expected to be up and running by early 2010.

Will this be a part of growing trend that sees long term jobs popping up on a massive scale in the wind power industry. With all the incentives and investments being invested in wind energy by the Obama adiministration is seems likely that wind power, and wind power jobs, will be here to stay.

The Emerging Energy Research’s annual Wind Turbine Market Share Update found that in 2008 the established wind turbine manufacturers installed over 50 percent more wind turbines than the previous year. Newer wind turbine companies saw a growth of 100 percent.

The big established wind turbine companies include: Bestas, General Electric, Gamesa, Enercon, Suzlon and Siemens. This group of six companies accounted for 70 percent of all of last year’s installations.

So despite the 100 percent growth of the newer companies, of which there are approximately 15, like Sinovel, Dongfang and Clipper, they are still fighting for a much smaller piece of the wind turbine pie.

Globally, wind turbine manufacturers installed about 11 GW more worth of turbines in 2008 than in 2007 to a total of almost 30 GW which amounts to nearly double what was installed in 2006.

A London based company called Solar Botanic intends to use Energy Harvesting Trees to generate solar as well as wind energy utilizing an emerging science called “biomimicry.”

Biomimicry mimics nature’s processes in order to produce clean, environmental friendly energy.

Solar Botanic claims that its energy capturing powerhouse is going to be Nanoleaf.

On their website, they say, “A Nanoleaf is thin like a natural leaf, when outside forces, like the wind pushes the Nanoleaf back and forth, mechanical stresses appear in the petiole, twig and branches. When thousands of Nanoleaves flap back and forth due to wind, millions and millions of Pico watts are generated, the stronger the wind, the more energy is generated.”

Think you have to spend a bunch of money to buy contraption to be a member of the wind turbine club? Think again. Rooftop wind turbines are becoming more and more popular. Rooftop turbines send the electricity they generate straight on to the homeowner’s circuit box, thus reducing their utility bills while using a renewable resource.

For example, the Swift Wind Turbine is both compact and quiet. By installing a wind turbine, users can reduce their carbon emissions as well as lower their electricity bills. When the wind is blows at 30 miles an hour or more, it will generate 1.5 kilowatts of electrical power However, these turbines can still run between $10 - $12,000 but state and federal incentives will help buyers supplement the cost.

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) has come up with some interesting stats and it seems 2008 has been a good year for the wind power industry.

Global wind energy capacity grew by 28.8 percent last year to reach total global installations of more than 120.8 GW at the end of 2008. The U.S. and China were named the leaders in terms of  newly installed capacity, as growth in the U.S. wind industry increased the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 50 percent, while China once again doubled its installed capacity.

“These figures speak for themselves: there is huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world. Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse cases must peak and begin to decline to avoid dangerous climate change,” said Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of GWEC.

“The 120 GW of global wind capacity in place at the end of 2008 will produce 260 TWh and save 158 million tons of CO2 every year.”

General Electric pushed renewable energy this year, running two spots at this year’s nail-biting Super Bowl. The first ad was for G.E.’s SmartGrid technology, while the second ad (above) was on wind energy to promote their ecomagination site. Do you think it was a success?

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm announced Wednesday that two wind sector firms are among ten Michigan businesses receiving support from the MEDC, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Great Lakes Towers, a start-up wind turbine tower manufacturing company, hopes to produce over 500 wind towers annually and is planning to spend $19 million to locate its first manufacturing plant in Monroe. Atwell-Hicks, a firm focusing on alternative energy and wind power energy production and transmission corridors for wind farms, is also among the beneficiaries. The company plans to invest $5 million to expand operations in the Ann Arbor area.

MEDC approved state tax credits to win the projects. Combined, the projects are expected to create 8,912 jobs.

“Despite these challenging economic times, our aggressive economic strategy is producing results for communities across Michigan, and we will continue to go anywhere and do anything to bring new jobs to our state,” said Granholm.

As we reported earlier the U.S. wind power industry saw record growth that resulted in it becoming the number one wind energy producing country in the world. Germany slipped to number and is currently sulking a little bit.

Another important aspect of this massive growth is that there is now more wind power industry jobs in the U.S. than there are coal power jobs.

Take that coal industry! Pow! Right in the kisser.

Wind power jobs rose by 70% last year for a total of 85,000 workers. The coal industry on the other hand has 81,000 positions.  Another nice aspect of the growth of the wind power industry is that a lot of the manufacturing positions are appearing in areas that have been hardest hit by deindustrialization.

Another interesting part of the report is that wind power accounted for 42% of all the new power added to the U.S. last year. And much of this new wind energy is happening in the West so we are seeing a shift in electricity generation from the East to the West. Texas saw the most investment into wind energy and currently leads the country with a total of 7,116 megawatts of power generated. Iowa saw a great deal of growth too and beat out California for the second most wind power generated with 2,790 megawatts.

In 2008 U.S. investment in the wind power industry totalled $17 billion and saw wind energy output boosted by 8,300 megawatts. This was substantial enough to make the U.S. the world leader in wind power, overtaking Germany.

The U.S. now produces approximately 25 gigawatts of electricity from wind power, which is enough to provide power for seven million homes.

This investment boom in wind power is likely to slow down drastically this year despite the fact the Obama administration is looking for ways to reduce dependence on oil.

The credit crisis in the U.S. has devastated financing for large-scale wind power projects. Hopefully the economic stimulus bill will provide the wind power sector with a gust of help. Wind power jobs are already being cut and the momentum of 2008 is being lost.

The 30% renewable energy tax credits for wind power investments doesn’t mean what it once did now that companies are worried more about making any money at all. The result is very little concern for finding tax breaks compared with sound investments.

As we reported earlier, renewable energy tax credits could become grants that would be received without 60 days of a wind power investment. If that makes it through Congress it would result in a lot more wind turbines going up this year than if it’s only a tax credit.