Posted on 09/20/2012 8:57:02 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Wind energy equipment manufacturer Siemens Energy Inc. will lay off 615 workers in Iowa, Kansas, and Florida in part because Congress has not renewed a tax credit for wind energy, the company said Tuesday.
Siemens said the biggest job losses will come in Fort Madison, Iowa, where 407 workers at a wind-turbine blade factory will be out of work. About 220 workers will be retained at the plant to support ongoing operations, spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick said in a statement.
About 146 workers are affected in Hutchinson, Kan., leaving 152 still working. In Orlando, Fla., about 62 workers will lose their jobs and about 150 will remain.
The company blamed difficult market conditions due to lack of congressional action on a wind energy tax credit as well as increased use of natural gas-fired power plants. It said it has worked for the past 10 months to address the uncertainties but needed to adjust its work force until demand for turbines returns.
"As a result, following the rapid ramp-up of the wind power industry over the past five years, the industry is facing a significant drop in new orders, and this has an unfortunate consequence on employment in this segment of the power industry," the company said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Siemens does a lot more than wind technology.
But, but, without wind energy...how will we get to the stars?
Wind and Solar have their place, but we aint getting what people promise with the so called New technology.
It works great in remote applications that have limited demand, but there is a reason Oil and Coal are King.
You are funny guy!
Actually when I was like 11, I built an ion drive demonstration for school and that is what Nasa is using today in conjunction with solar panels for deep deep space exploration.
It is completely useless on earth.
...shipping out 600,000 barrels of oil a month.
True
I truly am sorry about all these people losing their jobs. Don’t know about the other cities but there just aren’t a lot of jobs to be had in Hutchinson, Kansas. They’ve had a really hot, dry summer with some really bad harvests in that area. Certainly no jobs in Wichita for them to go to.
Seems to me if this had proven to be such a good investment some enterprising individual would have stepped up and taken it over before now.
I worked with them for a while.
They aren’t that innovative anymore.
They use basic concepts and try to market them in new applications
This Application fails..
Just too much time on my hands....
But seriously folks......When I get the chance to build on some acreage, I fully plan on supplemental (key word: supplemental) energy using wind and solar, but would never consider it as a primary.
When the cold settled over the UK winter before last, almost no pressure differential existed to create wind, ergo, almost no energy available when they needed it the most.
I am upset Americans are losing their jobs, however, if we can stop this nonsense, maybe we can create jobs of substance.
The problem with their calculations is that without Gov subsidies the project was unviable.
The science was probably sound.
But that doesn’t make it sound for the application they were targeting.
Ion drive, nice.
Considering that space is filled predominantly with plasma...
Well that is grand if you can recover your cost over the life cycle of the system.
I too want to be off the grid.
It works.
What is the “wind energy tax credit”? Is that a credit for manufacturers of turbines or a credit to power companies or something else?
As a rule, the federal tax credit is what made wind energy "viable".
There was, as I recall, a 20-yr limit on the tax credit and most windfarms built over 20 years ago were abandoned when their tax credit ran out.
Its really slow building up a head of steam but it works.
Two logical solutions - Keystone Pipeline and Drill Baby Drill in Anwar
It ain’t no warp drive but a probe launched at the standard velocity and additional thrust via your gadget and the Voyager probes would have left the Solar system a while back.
Both
For all the talk that it’s some warp drive it is really a snail drive.
But in the frictionless realm of outer space. It works.
Solar panels gather the required energy as it coasts through space.
When the thrusters fire it gains speed and the cycle is repeated.
The beauty part is that in space it can operate for long periods of time just using solar energy, going faster and faster since the is no resistance in space.
Lather rinse repeat.
The issue would be having energy to slow it down so you don’t over shoot your objective, but that is just math.
Slow the approach.
My demo experiment on earth, a model rocket on a string, moved like 1/32 of an inch at full power, But it proved concept.
The problem with Solar and Wind on Earth is not that they do not work, but that we have more efficient methods already available.
It would take 100,000 ugly inefficient windmills to replace one large coal fired plant.
Pray for America
Windmills have to be governed, they aren’t simple devices as some would think.
A windmill in a 80- 100Mph wind will shred itself
You need variable pitch propellers, computer control.
On top of that they need seasonal maintenance.
The reduction gears have to get the oil changed to different weight in winter and summer, bearings must be maintained.
Ff the oil is to high a viscosity in winter the damn thing wont turn.
Then there is the matter of what happens when the wind don’t blow?
And how do we store the energy we did get?
Then there us the matter of how much space per KW we need to set up the wind farm.
I think it is hilarious that the very people that back solar are now suing because it will take HUGE swaths of land and impact the animals to build a solar plant.
Wrong-o, buck-o.
The ion drive has been adapted to etching difficult materials by the semiconductor industry, look up 'ion mill'.
Well then, somebody is using their noggin, but you wont use it on earth to propel a car.
Science is fascinating.
Yeah. I miss working in wafer fab!
I never have done that but but the physics behind silicon junctions, H,J and K atomic valence shells and such is fascinating.
Gotta get to bed Cya later.
“Well that is grand if you can recover your cost over the life cycle of the system. I too want to be off the grid.”
Well the best way to do that, lacking geothermal or a mountain stream, is to have a gas, oil well or coal mine on your property.
Bingo.
One of the things no one think of with solar is maintenance.
Who puts those on the roof?
How do you clear the snow off in winter?
Ya gonna climb up on the roof every day? You cant walk on them without damaging them.
In the summer after showers how do you windex them?
If, If I ever used them they would be mounted at ground level.
That’ll be on my “to find” list.
Did you get any video of it....sounds sweet.
One small step for “mylife”, one giant....
“One of the things no one think of with solar is maintenance.”
That’s not even the biggest problem. How do you store the energy from the sunlight to use at night?
It was 1970, they had just invented the Semi conductor and people didn’t even realize what Jack Kilby had invented with the IC.
I would not recognize that mind stroke for another 11 years.
Obama doesn't plan to let people own their own homes and ground..he will decide what you can have...
if he is re elected America as we knew it will be NO MORE..
just look at the damage he has done in three plus years..
COAL MINE ON YOUR PROPERTY?? AND YOU THINK THE EPA AND
HUSSEIN OBAMA THUGS ARE GOING TO LET YOU EXTRACT THAT COAL..
Solyndra: An expensive fraud just like Obama.
1970....the year I entered the US Coast Guard.
“just look at the damage he has done in three plus years..”
That is why I’m voting for Paul Ryan...and the other guy.
The time it takes to bring energy sources online is mostly measured in decades.
The two "major" parties have treated energy policy as a political football, putting their own power ahead the sort of long-range planning necessary to guarantee our energy supplies - and thereby our prosperity, our productivity and our national defense - off into the future.
And so, until we elect a whole new breed of cat, you can expect our slide into oblivion to continue to its inevitable conclusion.
Romney and Ryan are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
--James Freeman Clarke“A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.”
Transistors were invented in the latter stages of WWII. Where do you come off with this 1970s crap? Transistor radios were very popular in the early 1960s. I am not sure when the first IC was invented but solid state semi-conductors were invented a long time before 1970.
Applying pressure to Congress? And Obama?
“A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.”
—James Freeman Clarke
Excellent...
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