Gov. Ritter’s Busy ‘New Energy Economy’ Week

Last week, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter had a very busy week taking part in numerous ‘New Energy Economy’-related events.  They include:

A water purification plant in Pueblo, CO (The Water Company) announced an expansion last Monday.  140 new good paying jobs will be created.  How can such an expansion happen in such horrible economic times?  Taxes – the bane of the Cons’ existence:

The money comes from the city’s half-cent sales tax, collected especially for economic development projects that bring new revenue into the Pueblo area.

A 1/2 cent sales tax, in just this one instance, will create 140 high paying jobs in Pueblo.  That tax and those jobs are an investment in the community of Pueblo.  Cons would rather see that tax go away, and with it, this expansion and those jobs.

Ascent Solar announced it is moving its headquarters and manufacturing from Littleton to Thornton last Tuesday.  While the move will occur within Colorado, it will allow for expansion of thin-film solar photovoltaic panel manufacturing.  That expansion will generate up to 300 more good paying jobs.  Ascent will initially be able to produce panels that can generate 25 megawatts of energy per year.  By 2011, they expect to be able to manufacture 100 megawatts of solar energy producing panels per year.

An ongoing story in Colorado’s New Energy Economy, under Gov. Ritter’s leadership and vision, is that of Vestas Wind Systems.  Due to active outreach, Vestas decided to build a wind blade manufacturing plant near Winsor, CO.  The location is near railroad infrastructure, allowing delivery of wind blades to other areas around the country where wind farms are being constructed.  Due to further outreach by Gov. Ritter, Vestas decided to expand operations.  Along the way, Hexcel Corp. decided to build a new plant near the Vestas facilities.

While the fossil fuel drilling industry is closing drilling rigs around the Inter-mountain West as demand slacks off, demand for wind and solar energy continues to increase.  Plans for manufacturing are increasing in the renewable energy industry, not being scaled back.  Colorado’s Cons would have liked to keep all our financial incentive eggs in the fossil fuel drilling basket.  Thankfully, Gov. Ritter and thousands of other Coloradans saw the future more clearly.  Colorado’s economy would be suffering even more than it is if the Cons had had their way.

So it’s no mistake that on Wednesday of last week, Gov. Ritter joined Denmark’s Crown Prince and Crown Princess in formally breaking ground on two new Vestas Colorado wind manufacturing plants.  How does the Crown Prince view renewables?

Danish Crown Prince Frederik said Wednesday that expanding a country’s renewable energy sources and recovering from a recession don’t have to be mutually exclusive.  “Denmark is economically competitive not in spite of these efforts, but because of them,” he said at a Brighton plant groundbreaking for Danish wind-turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems.

Did you read that, Colorado Cons?  Denmark is economically competitive because they’ve invested in renewable energy sources.  It really shouldn’t be that shocking, but these kinds of events and statements need increased publicity to deliver their positive message.

The Post article has some important numbers:

The prince, his wife, Crown Princess Mary, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter attended the ceremony for two parts plants by Vestas, which already has a blade-making plant in Windsor, about 50 miles north of Denver. More than 200 people work there and 650 are expected at full employment.

The company also is planning a 400-employee factory in Pueblo to build towers that support the turbines, which it has said would be the world’s largest such factory.

The two plants will employ about 1,350 people at full operation, expected next year. Ole Borup Jakobsen, president of Vestas Blades, said the plants’ annual production eventually will reach 2,000 blades and 1,400 nacelles, which are housings for the turbine’s generator, transformer and gearbox.

State officials said Vestas is spending about $290 million to build the two plants. The company will also locate an employee training and development division and a technology and production engineering office in Brighton.

I’ll add all this up: 650 + 400 + 1350 = 2,400 good paying Colorado jobs.  Those Colorado jobs will help generate renewable energy, which will reduce greenhouse gas pollution, which does cost us money – it just hasn’t been properly accounted for in the past.  $290 million spent in a state that is in a recession.  That’s not chump change.  That’s real money that will help provide a needed boost.  This article doesn’t go into how many more jobs will be created at the training or engineering offices.  It also doesn’t (because it can’t) provide information on other renewable energy companies moving operations to Colorado, employing more people and benefiting the state, just like Hexcel has done. How many other companies will follow suit? I look forward to finding out.

I will point out that the Cons are nowhere to be seen nor heard.  Gov. Ritter and many others are hard at work creating real jobs in Colorado at a time when we need them most.  These jobs will lay the foundation for the green-powered energy revolution that will come about.  Beholden to their failed ideology, the Cons are failing to be “bipartisan” or “moderate” in this case (among others).  I’ll remember that as the 2010 Governor race heats up.  We’re sure to hear the Cons complain about how partisan and extreme Democrats have been.  The corporate media will of course fail to point out the projection and hypocrisy of those comments, but I won’t.  Where is uber-Con Dick Wadhams?  Where is the “moderate” Scott McInnis?  Why are the Cons missing in this story and why isn’t the corporate media pointing it out?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Weekend News Roundup: 2/20-21/09

I was disappointed to read that President Obama has taken NAFTA renegotiation of the table.  American workers are suffering because of failed “free-trade” policies.  If he wants high employment and a strong economy, protecting our workers is a primary way to get there.  This is a result of the people Obama has put into power.

Congratulations go to formor President Bush for allowing Iran to become another nuclear state.  It joins North Korea as a country that can threaten our allies for years to come, just as the War industry wanted.

Hexcel Corporation broke ground on a 100,000-sq-ft facility in north-eastern Colorado that will manufacture epoxy-resin components for wind blades.  They moved here because Vestas manufactures those wind blades at an adjacent location.  While the gas and oil industry cuts jobs in Colorado due to lack of demand for their products, the wind and solar industry enjoys new businesses and new jobs.

Another 627,000 jobs were lost in the Economy Bush Built.  Net job losses could total 700,000 for February.  Good thing corporate profits were setting records as late as last year.  I’d hate to think the economy was bad or something.

About one in four people with a mortgage owe more than their homes are worth.  One of Obama’s solutions is to force lenders to re-negotiate mortgage terms.  The lending industry, who got us into this mess in the first place, is objecting to the plan.  As usual, they’re also not proposing any kind of solution.  Doing nothing will all but destroy our economy.

David Harsanyi continues his crusade against America with his op-ed this week.  He claims taxes, extreme government spending and wealth redistribution are patriotic in an attempt to slam President Obama’s recovery plans.  In Con Fantasy Land, it seems tax reductions are now called tax increases.  Similarly, the past 8 years of keeping occupations off the budget and creating the largest government program in 30 years (that doesn’t work with its peers) went by uncommented since it was a Con “president” who proposed the “extreme government spending”.  Last but not least, Harsanyi’s characterization of wealth redistribution comes across as pathetic after we’ve seen the effects of Bush’s “tax cuts”.  Americans were sure glad to get one two grand back (the first year only) they were passed weren’t they?  Oh, except for the richest 1%.  They’re keeping hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year thanks to Bush’s tax cuts.  Wealth redistribution indeed.  And what’s up with this:

Yes, the same Freddie and Fannie — once implicitly guaranteed by government and now explicitly run by government — that helped, through social engineering, to push us into recession.

I wish the rest of us had figured out what the great sage Harsanyi did – Fannie and Freddie (with Cons leading them right up through the beginning of this horrible recession) were so unbelievably powerful.  Cons love their conspiracy theories.  I learned an important lesson during the Bush years.  When a Con says something, the reality is exactly opposite.

Breckenridge ski resort may not be allowed to expand onto Peak 6.  At issue is a lynx recovery plan.  It’s nice to see more honest consideration of all factors with something like this.

A Colorado constitutional rewrite is being seriously considered by more and more people.  State spending is affected by numerous, conflicting amendments.  Colorado can either lose out on education, health care and prisons or a group of adults (hopefully) can come together and implement realistic solutions.  If a Constitutional Convention is called, one potential flaw is they can rewrite any part of the Constitution they want.  It would be nice if people who were convinced government can’t operate weren’t put in charge of that government.  It simply makes no sense.

The Colorado House Agriculture Committee killed a proposal to limit the involvement of the Division of Wildlife in issuing oil and gas drilling permits.  The CDoW became involved in the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission only after a Democratic Governor was elected.  Not surprisingly, this pro-business article ony quoted a proponent of the bill.  Unlike climate change articles, where the denyers’ point-of-view in nearly sacrosant, opponents of HB-1255 didn’t get their comments published.

On a positive note for science, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory is scheduled to launch Tuesday.  The polar-orbiting satellite will measure oxygen-to-carbon ratios to indicate where carbon sources and sinks are at.  My fear is that carbon sources will be found to be larger and more prevalent than carbon sinks.  There are already indications that the warming oceans are soaking up less carbon every year, allowing the atmosphere and oceans to warm up even further.

Colorado’s New Energy Economy Expands

Colorado will welcome Hexcel Corp. next year.  Hexcel produces carbon fiber and other composite materials as supplies to Vestas Wind Systems.  It will build a new plant near Vestas’ wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Windsor, CO.

Vestas announced earlier this year plans to expand operations at its plant in Colorado.  I’m sure those plans helped spur Hexcel’s decision.  It’s just two companies that are starting and enlarging their business operations in Colorado; the good news is there are certainly others.  Those companies are establishing themselves at the beginning of the coming green energy wave.  Jobs have already been created.  More will be created.

What would some of the benefits of that developing green economy be if encouraged at the national level?  Based on a recent report by the Center for American Progress, Colorado would likely see investment of $1.7 billion.  Over 30,000 new jobs would be created within two years.

What should be next?  More wind farms.  More solar thermal plants.  Investment in a smart grid.  Electric vehicles that can store the energy from renewable energies.  Colorado, under Gov. Bill Ritter’s leadership, has taken the first steps toward a brighter, more productive future.  Coloradans know the steps already taken have to lead to additional, more aggressive steps.  Ritter will do what he can at the state level.  President-elect Obama needs to do what he can at the national level.