Although they have yet to disclose the location of the new tower manufacturing facility, it would be situated to complement the company’s fist North American blade manufacturing plant, which recently opened its doors in Windsor, Colorado.

For the tower plant, the company will need a large parcel of land served by freight rail, a combination that Northern Colorado can provide at several locations, including the Windsor location, where construction proceeds on phase two of the blade plant. According to the Northern Colorado Business Review, more than 1,000 new jobs could result from further expansion of Vestas’ manufacturing presence.

Healthy Profit Margins Hide Industry Bottlenecks

In the second piece of big news for the Vestas, the company reported very strong earnings on Thursday - the kind of earnings that emphasize the wind energy industry’s resilience to the slumping economy. Net income for Vestas rose 94 percent to 33 million euros ($56 million) from 17 million euros a year earlier. The company was expected to earn 35.5 million euros, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of five analysts.

Despite the strong growth in the wind energy business worldwide, the overall demand pressure on the industry persists. According to Bloomberg, there are still long lead times for a number of key components that can last as long as 15 months. Of particular concern to turbine manufacturers is a global increase in demand for carbon-fiber, the graphite composite material that moderns turbines blade use because of their light weight, and high tensile strength.

With that said, it seems that it will be a few years before supply will match demand. Even as new manufacturers pop up around the globe, they are being outpaced by the increases in global demand for clean, renewable energy.

Sources:

• Northern Colorado Business Review
• Bloomberg

Other posts about the cleantech industry:

• “Can ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ be Sexy: Two Energy Efficiency Stocks
• “Solar System Leases Taking Industry by Storm“
• “The Unlimited Potential of American Wind Energy: AWEA“

Photo: Vestas Wind Systems

Whenever I hear a recording of my voice I always think it sounds really weird. And although it seems like I’m implying that I have a ‘face for television’, I’m not (my twice-broken nose, gave me a nice nasally-twang, and a mighty proboscis that may be unfit for television).

What I’m saying is that XM Radio listeners were “treated” to eight minutes of yours truly today on Channel 130, “POTUS ‘08” (Politics Of The US), XM’s politics talk channel. The program is called 1600 with Rebecca Roberts (who you may know from her NPR gigs). According to the program’s website, “Roberts focuses on the campaign stories and news with in-depth interviews, unfiltered candidate messages, and commentary from the world of political bloggers.” The interview will be replayed tonight (actually Wednesday morning) at 12:30 pacific time. You can easily subscribe to a free three-day trial of XM if you want to listen to this, or any of the other excellent programs on POTUS ‘08.

To give you a hint of what we talked about, we covered the role environmental politics will play and has played in the presidential election, the emergence of green collar jobs, and the feast or famine nature of American clean energy development. My segment aired just after an interview with James Merrit, former president of the Southern Baptists Convention, who was talking about the SBC’s recently released statement about global warming, so we also talked about that a little.

Rebecca Roberts was sharp, well-informed and asked good questions. As far as my performance goes, we’ll just have to wait and see (or listen, as the case may be).

Schott, AG

“By the year 2030, the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries could generate up to $4.5 trillion in revenue in the U.S., but only with the appropriate public policy. This would include a renewable portfolio standard, renewable energy incentives, public education, and R&D” –ASES

The beauty of green collar jobs is that they can’t be outsourced: they are local and they are looking toward the future. One source of jobs in renewable energy is at AlternativeEnergy.com. 

It seems that these environmental jobs are not only for scientists anymore. Canadian employers are targeting multi-taskers, interdisciplinarians and passionate folks who want work to protect the environment as their ideal candidates. One thing is clear, however, the number of green job opportunities is growing considerably. According to Grant Trump, president of the Calgary-based Environmental Careers Organization of Canada:

“The opportunities in environmental careers are exploding. Demand is outstripping supply and it’s affecting industry’s ability to meet the environmental challenge. Right now, there are 530,000 jobs in Canada related to the environment, and we are projecting job growth over the next five years to increase by 8.8 per cent. This represents a rate that is 24-per-cent faster than the overall Canadian employment increase.”

This Canadian employee shortage might even open the door to more Americans who are actively seeking, but cannot find similar opportunities in a country that is talking a lot about green collar jobs without actually producing many of them. Speaking from first hand experience, I know that there is a wealth of opportunities in Canada right now in terms of research grants and graduate funding for disciplines in the traditional environmental disciplines as well as some of the less traditional ones.

Photo Credit: Zest-pk via flickr