Wind power blows hot and cold, manufacturer cautions

With Gov. Jennifer Granholm the state's chief cheerleader for wind power, proponents call it a key to Michigan's economic future.

Industry analyst Emerging Energy Research projects wind energy generation in the United States to grow nearly five-fold by 2015.

But a Bay City company that built thousands of wind-turbine blades found the industry holds perils as well as promise.

Gougeon Brothers Inc., a maker of advanced epoxies, produced turbine blades from 1979 to 1993. The wood-and-epoxy blades were shipped all over the United States, and some are still turning and generating power.

A variety of reasons caused the company to exit the business, President and CEO Robert Monroe said, and it's unlikely to resume making blades.

"It was way too much of a boom-bust for us," Monroe recalled. "We were taking on people who had the savvy to make blades, we'd come up to speed and then all of the sudden we were laying people off. So it was very cyclical."

Many companies involved in wind power at the time were insufficiently capitalized, Monroe explained. They struggled or failed to stay afloat when dropping oil prices in the 1980s caused wind energy to fall out of favor in the United States.

After producing 4,300 wind-turbine blades, Gougeon Brothers decided the business was too difficult to sustain, he said.

Gougeon Brothers shifted its focus to making a successful line of epoxies primarily for the marine industry under the West System and Pro-Set labels.

But the company's involvement in wind blades lives on in a clip posted on YouTube entitled, "Windows in Time."

Bay City's Gougeon Brothers Inc. produced more than 4,000 wind-turbine blades like these from 1976-1993, but found that alternative energy was a financial rollercoaster.

Today, Monroe does see some upsides that improve the prospects for wind-turbine manufacturing in Michigan.

For example, high oil and energy costs are making wind power more attractive as an alternative power source, he said. And turbines themselves are much larger, allowing them to capture wind in marginal areas -- like here, he said.

"Michigan is not considered a good state for wind. On a one to 10 scale, it was in the one or two zone," Monroe said.

Michigan's first commercial wind-energy project, Harvest Wind Farm, was completed in 2007 in Huron County. The $90 million project is owned by John Deere Wind Energy.

The state Legislature is debating a law requiring utilities in Michigan to obtain 10 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2015. Gov. Granholm argues that wind and solar power are keys to revitalizing Michigan's manufacturing industry.

Midland-based Dow Chemical Co. announced this spring that it would roll out an epoxy system called Airstone specifically for the global wind-energy market.

"We have the scale in terms of manufacturing capacity that allows us to produce at levels to help manufacturers (of wind turbines) meet demand," Dow spokesman David Cameron said.

Cameron said Dow plans to deal directly with wind-turbine makers rather than sell its resins and epoxies through intermediaries. Airstone systems will be made at a Dow factory in Texas and another in Germany, he said.

Burgeoning investment in wind power, especially in the United States and Asia, is straining the supply chain, analysts EER said. It reported global shortages in key components such as bearings, gearboxes and castings, but predicted that new United States blade manufacturing and nacelle assembly investments will ease delivery bottlenecks starting in 2009.

But regardless of a company's size, turbine and blade transportation costs and transmitting electricity to the state's power grid remain challenges for the Michigan wind-energy market, Gougeon CEO Monroe cautioned.

"These are so huge that shipping is a dominant thing. That was even the case when we were in it," he said.

Companies today might find it easier to take trucks of fiber and resin to the job site and make the blades there, rather than to build a fixed factory and ship them, he said.

And even if turbine makers decide to manufacture in Michigan, they may only be active for a limited time, Monroe believes.

"So many people want to put up blades, but once Michigan is saturated, those jobs will go away," he said.