Wind jobs outstrip the coal industry

photo: Todd Woody

Here’s a talking point in the green jobs debate: The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States.

Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, the coal industry mining employs about 81,000 workers. (Those figures are from a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report but coal employment has remained steady in recent years though it’s down by nearly 50% since 1986.) Wind industry employment includes 13,000 manufacturing jobs concentrated in regions of the country hard hit by the deindustrialization of the past two decades.

The big spike in wind jobs was a result of a record-setting 50% increase in installed wind capacity, with 8,358 megawatts coming online in 2008 (enough to power some 2 million homes). That’s a third of the nation’s total 25,170 megawatts of wind power generation. Wind farms generating more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity were completed in the last three months of 2008 alone.

Another sign that wind power is no longer a niche green energy play: Wind accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation installed last year in the U.S. Power, literally, is shifting from the east to west, to the wind belt of the Midwest, west Texas and the West Coast. Texas continues to lead the country, with 7,116 megawatts of wind capacity but Iowa in 2008 overtook California for the No. 2 spot, with 2,790 megawatts of wind generation. Other new wind powers include Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado and Washington state.

But last year’s record is unlikely to be repeated in 2009 as the global credit crisis delays or scuttles new projects because developers are unable to secure financing for wind farms. Layoffs have already hit turbine makers like Clipper Windpower and Gamesa as well as companies that produce turbine towers, blades and other components.

The Obama administration’s $825 billion stimulus package includes a three-year extension of a key production tax credit that has spurred the wind industry’s expansion. But given the dearth of investors with tax liabilities willing to invest in wind projects in exchange for the credits, the stimulus is unlikely to be stimulating to the industry unless the tax credit is made refundable to developers.

The U.S. wind industry is dominated by European wind developers and turbine makers - General Electric (GE) and Clipper are the only two domestic turbine manufacturers - and those companies’ fortunes rise and fall with the global economy. As the U.S. market has boomed, European companies have been moving production close to their customers - the percentage of domestically manufactured wind turbine components rose from 30% to 50% between 2005 and 2008, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

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1 family gets 445 credit card offers in a year

Lisa Black

Gary Silbar holds some of the 445 credit card offers his family was mailed last year. (Tribune photo by David Trotman-Wilkins / January 5, 2009)

Somebody had to do it. Who, after all, hasn't wondered how many credit card applications arrive in their mailbox in a year?

Gary Silbar of Highland Park decided to find out and has saved 445 applications to show for it, including a hefty 35 addressed to his kids, Max, 8, and Jake, 11.

Silbar collected and sorted every application sent to his family of four between November 2007 and October 2008. He filled two filing boxes with them and likely extended the life of his shredder.

"I had no idea it would be this amount," Silbar said, ripping open a few of his most recent mailings to demonstrate their variety.
The stack of "pre-approved" promises and "apply now" pitches weigh in at 23 pounds and include offers of zero balance transfers, air miles and local store discounts.

It all began when Silbar received seven applications in a day and tried to imagine how many he could harvest in a year.

While it must have been tempting to toss the growing pile every once in a while, he savored the challenge. He even wondered whether Buddie, the family's dog, would get a few. So far, no.

But Silbar's two sons received pre-approved credit card applications, including Citibank's offer to match airline miles for each dollar spent. For some reason, Max led his brother by five applications.

"Jake's upset," Silbar said. "Why is Max getting more credit card applications than him?"

When the economy soured halfway through the year, he expected the barrage of direct mail to slow to a drizzle. It did no such thing.

The reason, experts say, is that Silbar and his wife, Karen, have good credit histories. He runs a public relations firm, Gary Silbar Communications, from his home and banks with Chase. That company, alone, sent 110 solicitations.

Silbar wondered if his family was an anomaly and why banks continued to spend a "boatload" of money on people like himself who don't respond.

"It's not typical, but it's also not unprecedented," said Stephen Clifford, vice president of financial services for Chicago-based Mintel Comperemedia.

The company, which monitors direct mail and e-mail marketing, finds that most households average two or three solicitations per month.

"My guess is this gentleman and his wife have very good credit card scores and so they will be in the sweet spot," Clifford said.

Nationally, the number of credit card offers sent to consumers declined to a three-year low by the third quarter of 2008 because of the faltering economy, according to Mintel.

The financial giants sent a mere 1.34 billion mailings during that quarter, a 28 percent drop from the same period in 2007.

Those banks are focusing their efforts on more affluent spenders. Consumers with poor credit scores or annual incomes below $50,000 can expect fewer mailings, but others such as the Silbars remain choice targets.

Silbar's questions were posed to a few of the credit card companies that most aggressively pushed their products, including Chase, American Express and Citi.

All declined to provide numbers on their direct mail spending, which they described as proprietary information.

Desiree Fish, an American Express spokeswoman, agreed that direct mail is the company's most profitable form of marketing. She talked about behaviors that deem people "credit-worthy" and factors that play into it, such as the number of adults per household and whether they are existing customers.

"We do a number of mailings throughout the year to obviously entice customers who may not have a card," said Fish. "We have a number of customers who have multiple products. We don't solicit to children" and said that was a mistake.

Citi spokesman Samuel Wang declined to comment.

Chase recommended that irritated consumers call the phone number on the mail offers and ask them to stop. However, spokeswoman Tanya Madison warned that the offers may continue rolling in for a few months "while the opt-out is being processed."

Justin McHenry, president of IndexCreditCards.com, which lists card offers, said in an e-mail that he believes consumers have grown accustomed to a daily barrage of credit card offers.

"However, many credit card companies are cutting back on credit lines and/or raising rates on their customers these days, even for customers who've done nothing wrong," wrote McHenry.

Silbar is not so much annoyed as he is flabbergasted by the sheer amount of mail.

"We will have to shred it over a couple of days," he said. "Otherwise, we will burn out the shredder, and I will have to use a credit card to buy a new shredder."

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Fraunhofer claims world record in solar cell efficiency - 41.1%

By Wolfgang Gruener

Munich (Germany) – Solar cells remains one of the most fascinating and promising research areas these days. Scientists at the German Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy Systems (ISE) recently announced that they've developed a solar cell capable of providing 41.1% efficiency, which is the highest level achieved to date. They are now working to make the technology commercially available.


The new solar cell is an evolution in Fraunhofer’s metamorphous solar cell research, which has been in place since 1999. The research is focused on combinations of semiconductor materials, in this case it's GaInP / GaInAs / Ge (Gallium-Indium-Phosphid / Gallium-Indium-Arsenide / Germanium). In 1999, the scientists discovered that these materials are well-suited for converting sunlight into electricity, and today it seems their long effort is paying off.

Over the years, the research group at Fraunhofer has been working on methods to better align the material and its cell structure with spectrum received from sunlight on the surface of our planet. What makes this newly developed solar cell special is that the scientists were able to identify and correct defective areas within the non-electrical crystaline portion of the solar cell, thus creating a much more efficient cell; one that can be created virtually free from defects.

Fraunhofer's new solar cell. At 454x normal sunlight concentration, it achieved 41.1% efficiency.

A 5mm² solar cell (Ga_0.35In_0.65P / Ga_0.83In_0.17As) built with this new material and knowledge was exposed to a concentration of sunlight 454x times normal. It achieved an efficiency of 41.1%, and at 880x normal sunlight intensity, it achieved a 40.4% efficiency. What is even more noteworthy though, is the fact that Fraunhofer is already working with Azur Space and Concentrix Solar to implement their technology into "competitive" commercial products. The researchers did not say how long it will take until the cells are available.

However, we did hear that it is unlikely mainstream consumers will be able to buy this technology and install it at home anytime soon. When available, these will be a fairly expensive solar cells that are likely to be used in large-scale photovoltaic systems as well as solar power plants - at least initially.

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