The rush to America of foreign wind-turbine manufacturers shows that the Obama administration's plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction. Two weeks ago, U.S. Renewable Energy Group, led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr, announced plans to build a $1.5 billion wind energy farm in West Texas. About a third of the money would come from federal stimulus funds. ...There would be perhaps 330 jobs created in Texas. Most would be temporary construction jobs. Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese workers in the northeastern industrial city Shenyang would build the labor-intensive turbines.

Two companies that encountered political anger for their plans to use Chinese-built turbines on a wind farm in West Texas have announced plans to build a new turbine factory - in the United States. The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an investment firm, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese turbine maker, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to build "a new production and assembly plant in the United States that will supply highly advanced wind energy turbines to renewable energy projects throughout North and South America."

The rush to America of foreign wind-turbine manufacturers shows that the Obama administration's plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction.

Driving through western Kansas, you'll see hundreds of whirling wind turbines. But you won't see lots of people - or high-voltage power lines. And that is the big obstacle to realizing the wind-energy potential of Kansas and the Midwest: You can put up all the towers and turbines you like, but without more transmission lines, the added electricity won't get to the cities that could use it. Those lines will take years to build and cost tens of billions of dollars - if they are built at all.

The Obama administration should bar a $1.5 billion wind-farm project in Texas from receiving U.S. government stimulus funds because most of the power turbines would be made in China, Senator Charles Schumer said. "The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling," Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote in a draft of a letter he said yesterday he would send to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. ...Schumer said he would pursue legislation if necessary to prevent stimulus funds from being used for the Texas project.

A Democratic senator is calling on the Obama administration to reject an expected request for federal economic stimulus money as part of a $1.5 billion West Texas wind energy project because he says it will generate Chinese, not American, jobs. The U.S.-China venture, announced last week, would erect 240 huge Chinese-manufactured wind turbines on 36,000 acres in West Texas, with the Export-Import Bank of China committed to handle most of the financing.

News that $450 million in federal stimulus money might go toward installing Chinese-made wind turbines in Texas prompted criticism on Thursday, with Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, calling on the Obama administration to deny federal financing. According to partners in the deal, the proposed 600-megawatt wind farm, announced late last week, would be built on 36,000 acres in West Texas using 240 wind turbines manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.

Wind energy in the Panhandle has become the darling of developers who see a profitable future. But establishing wind farms and erecting turbines are just part of the answer. Capturing the wind is an initial step; it's another matter to transport that energy. ...Bev Dampf recently addressed Randall County commissioners on the subject. He expressed frustration with a lack of support from the city of Amarillo and the county for opposition to a line proposed to run roughly along Sundown Lane just south of the city.

Eleven possible routes for a new high-voltage power line proposed to link substations in Lampasas and Gillespie counties have been filed with the Public Utility Commission by LCRA Transmission Services Corporation. The 345 kilovolt line, slated to go into operation in 2012, will cover about 90 miles and could traverse Gillespie, Llano, San Saba, Burnet and Lampasas counties, said Gaylon Finklea Hecker of the LCRA.

A Sino-US consortium yesterday announced plans for a US$1.5 billion, 600MW wind farm in Texas, with China supplying all the turbines and most of the funding. The 36,000-acre wind farm ...is a joint venture between state-backed Chinese firm Shenyang Power Group, US wind farm developer Cielo Wind Power and private equity firm US Renewable Energy Group. Most of the funding for the project will come from Chinese banks, with loan guarantees and grants provided by the US federal government's economic stimulus package.

106 San Saba citizens took a stand last Monday evening. Literally. The standing room only crowd assembled at 7:00 pm on October 19th to learn more about the proposed high-voltage transmission line proposed for San Saba County. The proposed line (known as the Brown-Newton Line) would bring energy from West Texas wind farms through Central Texas to population centers like Austin, San Antonio and Houston. ...No one spoke in favor of the proposal.

The company set to build wind energy transmission lines from Childress County to Gray County will meet with the public this week. Cross Texas Transmission plans high-voltage lines along a 90- to 120-mile route that would be in a right-of-way 200 feet wide, according to information from the company. The lines will run from east of Childress, near Kirkland, to southwest of Lefors.

We, the residents of the Texas Panhandle, must demand respect for our natural treasures or we will lose them. ...Lastly, utility companies - do your homework. Take time to learn about the communities you are impacting. View the properties, visit with local historians, talk to the people. Above all, respect the landowners and citizens of this state and gain awareness of sensitive environments and locations before you propose routes for CREZ transmission lines. Once destroyed, environmentally and historically priceless properties such as the north Palo Duro Canyon can never be replaced.

Texas cares little for environmental niceties. Its governor, Rick Perry, bashes the Environmental Protection Agency at every opportunity, and recently branded the climate bill that passed the House of Representatives a "legislative monstrosity." Yet the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation's top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world's largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

Texas, which produces more energy than any other U.S. state, may see a slowdown in expanding wind generation this year and in 2010 as low natural-gas prices make new plants less profitable, state utility regulator Barry Smitherman said.

When it comes to generating green energy from the wind, Texas leads the way. But in the pursuit of cleaner energy, there's also an environmental cost: Dead birds and bats killed by turbine blades. Now a unique research project in North Texas is trying to find out how many are dying and what can be done to save them. As Texas continues to flip the switch from dirty coal to clean wind, not all is perfectly green.

A doubling of wind-generated electric capacity anticipated in Texas by 2015 will alter operations of every power plant in the state, industry sources said on Wednesday. The rise in wind to an expected 18,500 megawatts of installed capacity will force aging, natural gas-fired power plants to shut, limit output at times from coal-fired plants and create a need for nimble, simple-cycle gas plants that investors are wary to build in the current market, said members of an industry panel at the Gulf Coast Power Association conference.

Investment bankers are all aflutter with the onset of stimulus money for renewable energy projects according to the August 31 Wall Street Journal. After a long lag, numerous firms have again invested upwards of $100 million in wind farms. Investors are attracted by the quick returns made possible by the hefty federal grants and tax benefits. The growing subsidies for wind power mask wind's high cost and inherent limitations, but only for so long. ...Although appealing to many, wind power is an extremely expensive, inefficient, and unreliable source of electricity, incapable of providing base load power. Wind's intermittency, variability, line loss, necessary back-up generation, transmission needs, and dispatch complexity limit the amount of electricity wind can secure.

As 37-mile-per-hour gusts blasted downtown Minneapolis on Thursday, hundreds of wind-energy executives were inside the Minneapolis Hilton, discussing the challenges their industry still faces. Chief among those challenges: weather-related down times and - perhaps more surprisingly - utilities unwilling to accept energy from wind farms because their high-voltage transmission lines can't accept any more power.