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.

Millions in federal stimulus money was expected for Locust Ridge II wind farm near Shenandoah even before President Obama took office in January, according to the company that developed the project. "When we were lobbying (the Obama transition team), we said, 'You need to do something or we can't utilize the tax credit,' " Rich Glick, government affairs director with international wind power company Iberdrola Renewables, said in a conference call with The Republican-Herald late Thursday afternoon. "It allowed us to complete Locust Ridge."

Despite reports to the contrary, none of the $294 million in stimulus money awarded Tuesday to Spanish wind company Iberdrola Renewables will be spent in Pennsylvania, according to company officials. ...Johnson said Iberdrola applied for stimulus money using projects already completed, like Locust Ridge II, as examples. She said the federal government was looking at a company's track record of success.

Iberdrola SA, a Spanish company, will get most of the more than $500 million in economic recovery funds the Obama administration said today it is distributing to U.S. renewable-energy projects. Bilbao, Spain-based Iberdrola will get $236 million for wind farms in Texas, Oregon and Minnesota and an additional $59 million for a Pennsylvania wind project, U.S. officials said.

The feds have awarded $502 million under a new $3 billion program that gives the cash equivalent of a 30 percent investment tax credit. The U.S. Department of Treasury has doled out $502 million under a new program to provide grants to renewable energy developers who opt for cash instead of the 30 percent investment tax credit.

A Texas professor urged members of Congress to drive a growing West Texas industry by funding wind-energy research. ..."I believe if research and education investments are made on the scale proposed that this industry can provide 20 percent of the nation's electrical power by 2030," the Lubbock professor said in testimony.

Spanish clean energy firm Iberdrola Renovables has said that it is hoping to secure between $400 million and $500 million in US government aid over the coming months in order to develop new wind projects in the US. ...offering direct funding for 30% of such investments (covering approximately 95% of the cost of the wind farm).

Putting up towers and turbines, building roads between them and hooking them to the power grid can be expensive. Offering a little leeway on the front end in the form of tax relief - up to about $10 million until recently - has helped Oregon bring in the farms during the past decade.

The government released guidelines Thursday for allocating stimulus money to renewable energy projects, a move expected to help kick-start an industry dragged down by the recession. The guidelines from the Treasury and Energy departments detail how developers can apply for grants to finance up to 30 percent of wind farms, solar plants, biomass facilities and other renewable energy operations.

The U.S. Department of Energy expects to soon set out rules for $6 billion in loan guarantees included in the stimulus package to fund renewable energy projects and is working to set up a small business program, a DOE official said on Tuesday. ...The $6 billion in loan guarantees is in addition to $42.5 billion in loan guarantees that have been authorized under energy legislation passed in 2005, but which have not yet been finalized.

The U.S. government is committing billions of dollars to support renewable energy such as wind- and solar-power plants. Some say it should use more of that financial clout to encourage less energy consumption in the first place. Advocates of conservation, including businesses that help homeowners and companies save energy, think there should be more subsidies and tax incentives for basics like insulation and window shading, and for newer, more costly products like light-emitting-diode lamps and building-automation systems.

The Obama administration has proposed a 25 percent cut in the research and development budget for one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the Northwest - wave and tidal power. ...Most of the attention so far has focused on developing large wind farms east of the Cascade Mountains. But because wind blows intermittently, the region also needs a more reliable source of alternative energy; tidal and wave fit that need. Also, at least with tidal, the generators would be closer to population centers than the wind turbines in eastern Washington.

Despite the speed with which the government wants to act - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- includes a goal of spending 50% of the $787 billion allocated by the legislation within 120 days from when it is signed into law -- many hurdles and unanswered questions remain ...while one provision of the Recovery Act gives cash grants, another takes away tax benefits. The act stipulates that recipients of cash grants can only use 85% of the accelerated depreciation associated with a project.

The signers represented virtually every type of clean energy - wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, combined heat and power, and biomass - and reflected the industry's concern that a loan guarantee program for clean energy projects approved in the stimulus package was stuck in the federal bureaucracy, as has been a similar loan program that predates the stimulus. The letter, seen by Green Inc, cited "disagreements" between the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget.

Several mob-linked wind projects later were found to be poorly built, and some are now off-line. "This is the amazing thing, that developers got public money to build wind farms which did not produce electricity," Roberto Scarpinato, a veteran anti-Mafia prosecutor in Sicily, told the Financial Times newspaper.

Lost financing, low prices for natural gas and political uncertainty have stymied a potential boom in the U.S. wind power industry this year. Investment in new wind power capacity that exploded from $3 billion in 2005 to $17 billion in 2008 was projected to fall to $13 billion this year. The fallout for the U.S. industry, the world's largest producer of wind power at 28,000 Megawatts, could usher in a period of consolidation, analysts said.

Project delays and cancellations across the renewable energy industry mean that this year's gathering at the world's biggest annual wind energy conference and exhibition will be keen for word of stimulus funds to help get projects back on track. Investment in renewables has been delayed or even withdrawn as the credit crisis has stemmed the flow of capital.

The U.S. wind power industry has huge potential, both onshore and off, but it's clearly looking for a hand from the government ...But will all that money be enough? Like most businesses these days, Clipper and other wind power companies have been hit by the down economy.