MINNESOTA LIKES THE OBAMA NEW ENERGY PLAN

President-elect Barack Obama in Time Magazine, days before the election: "Finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There's no better driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy ... That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office…"

President-elect Obama on CBS’ 60 Minutes, 12 days after the election:

CBS’ Kroft: Does doing something about energy [with oil under $60/barrel] is it less important now than…

Mr. Obama: It's more important. It may be a little harder politically, but it's more important…because this has been our pattern. We go from shock to trance. You know, oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it's not important, and we start, you know filling up our SUVs again.

And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it…I think what's interesting about the time that we're in right now is that you actually have a consensus among conservative Republican-leaning economists and liberal left-leaning economists. And the consensus is this: that we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again, that we're gonna have to spend money now to stimulate the economy…

The section of the interview quoted is in the last minute of this video. From iphoneprankster via YouTube.

The Obama campaign plan called for spending $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million jobs.

The President-elect shows no inclination to back off that plan.

A great example of the way spending will drive the bigger economy is Minnesota’s Port of Duluth.

Many wind turbines and wind turbine parts are manufactured in Denmark, Germany and Spain and shipped to the U.S. for assembly and installation. The port profits enormously from the shipping activity and a host of other economic benefits follow, from trucking to community services.

The state has also legislated policies that support New Energy development. An example is its Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring its utilities to obtain 25% of their power by 2025 (with a stronger mandate for Xcel Energy, its biggest and most progressive utility).

The result: Minnesota has one of the biggest wind energy capacities in the U.S. – which drives activity at the port even more, which spurs economic development even more.

33 states have mandatory or voluntary RESs and President-elect Obama wants a national RES requiring all U.S. utilities to obtain 10% of their power from New Energy sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.

A national RES will push growth even in states like Minnesota that already have RESs because it will incentivize neighboring states and generate more manufacturing, transport and shipping activity.

Delivering New Energy-generated electricity from rural, sparsely populated regions where it is captured to the population centers where it is demanded will also require new, high-speed transmission. Building the new transmission will drive the economy in the same way great building projects did during the 1930s depression years. Many of those depression-era undertakings still serve, 3/4 of a century later.

New transmission should also drive economic growth in a new way: Not-In-My-BackYard (NIMBY) and Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anything (BANANA) objections have some chance of being overcome if rights-of-way are negotiated with profit participation and approval from those whose property is involved.

Utility-scale wind installations are big business. Small, distributed-generation home and business wind, solar system and and geothermal system installations offer a huge opportunity for jobs in small business development. Efficiency retrofitting is another huge opportunity.

Solar in Minnesota? If Germany – with the solar resources of Juneau, Alaska – can lead the world in solar capacity, there is no reason Minnesota can’t develop a healthy business doing rooftop installations.

And whether a neighborhood has geysers or not is irrelevant to the new geothermal systems that circulate water through the deep, insulated earth to reduce any house’s heating and cooling loads.

Virtually every house and building not built in very recent decades will profit from efficiency retrofits, a potential source of work for decades to come, with self-reimbursing energy savings for the government that funds the undertaking.

The Obama plan also intends to put 1 million U.S.-manufactured plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) on the road by 2015. Industry like that could bring back the U.S. auto business, which would benefit showrooms and repair shops, not to mention – the Great Lakes ports.

The United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club are with the program, too. (click to enlarge)

State’s ‘new energy’ edge; With policy nudge, Minnesota poised to produce and profit
Leslie Brooks Suzukamo, November 15, 2008 (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

WHO
President-elect Barack Obama; Rod Larkins, associate director, Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment at the University of Minnesota (UM); Lois Quam, head of alternative energy investments, Piper Jaffray; Randall Swisher, executive director, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA); William Glahn, director, Minnesota Office of Energy Security;

WHAT
When asked by President-elect Obama’s staff about Minnesota’s strength in New Energy, Larkins pointed at the Port of Duluth, the state’s international port on the Great Lakes.

From the port to the site requires trucking, which means more blue collar jobs. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- Minnesota’s RES requires the state’s utilities obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025 and puts an even steeper requirement (30% by 2020) on Xcel Energy, its most progressive utility.
- Ford has a Minnesota plant slated for closing in 2011 that could easily get a new lease on life if U.S. automakers get a new lease on life from battery-driven vehicles.

WHERE
- The Port of Duluth is on Minnesota’s Lake Superior coast. It receives international shipments from the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway.
- Michigan and other Rust Belt states are expected to compete with Minnesota for shipping and manufacturing opportunities in wind.
- Previous NewEnergyNews stories have reported the same economic boom from New Energy, especially wind, at the Port of Longview, Washington, and the Port of Freeport, Texas.

WHY
- 3 of the biggest wind installation developers in the U.S. are in Minnesota. Each did about $1 billion in business in 2007.
- 3M, a Minnesota institution, has solar and transmission products that will boost the state’s economy as New Energy is developed and requires more wires.
- Minnesota has 19 ethanol plants.
The University of Minnesota is developing “next generartion” cellulosic ethanol.
- India’s Suzlon built a blade manufacturing plant in Pipestone, Minn., and Finland’s Moventas is building a turbine components factory in Faribault, Minn. This could eventually lead to exports.

Can't outsource this work. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Lois Quam, head of alternative energy investments, Piper Jaffray: “Minnesota has an opportunity to succeed in the new green economy by using its existing strengths to get there before others…"
- Randall Swisher, executive director, AWEA: "All we need to do is give the right signal ... and the investments will flow…"
- William Glahn, director, Minnesota Office of Energy Security: "The idea is not to put anyone out of business…The idea is to put financial incentives in energy that is more environmentally sound."
- Rod Larkins, associate director, Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment at UM: "Eventually…I'd rather have us exporting."