Manufacturing the future with wind

United States car makers are "decrepit and dying" and could be better put to work building wind turbines, according to the head of an international wind industry group.

Wind power is growing massively around the world by 36 per cent last year alone but it is expected to slow this year because of the global economic downturn, according to Steve Sawyer, the head of the Global Wind Energy Council.

"Wind (turbines) was the only manufacturing sector that added jobs in the US last year," Mr Sawyer told an audience of about 200 people at the Wind Energy conference in Wellington.

Last year, the number of US workers involved in wind generation grew from about 50,000 to 85,000, with more than 20 new factories opened.

"Every other manufacturing sector was losing jobs last year," he said.

Recent figures show about 650,000 people are month are losing their jobs in the US.

Up to 450,000 people have work around the world because of wind generation and that could rise to 2 million people by 2020, though Mr Sawyer warned that the figures were uncertain in some countries.

Wind power capacity globally was up more than 36 per cent last year alone, in part because of rapid growth in the United States.

Mr Sawyer said the average global growth in wind power in the past 12 years has topped 30 per cent.

"2008 was an exceptional year, because of what happened in China and in the United States," Mr Sawyer said.

It was an open question if there would be a another big company aside from General Electric making wind turbines in the US, Mr Sawyer said, but President Barack Obama could have some influence.

"Is that young man from Chicago (Mr Obama) going to do something about the decrepit and dying automobile industry and make it manufacture something useful for a change?" Mr Sawyer said.

"It hasn't made something useful since the 1967 Mustang (car)," he said.

The US built more new wind generation last year than New Zealand's entire power generation. And wind power in the US accounted for about 42 per cent of all new capacity built.

The new global investment in wind power was worth about NZ$83 billion last year.

Wind is expected to play an increasing role to ensure security of power supply and in an effort to combat increased carbon dioxide emissions linked with climate change.

This year global wind power growth was expected to be about 12 per cent.

"The rate of growth this year will dip dramatically this year," Mr Sawyer said.

There would still be growth in the Chinese wind sector, but the US would slow down.

Mr Sawyer is an international expert of climate change policies and in the past worked as chief executive for Greenpeace International. Mr Sawyer was also expedition leader for the Rainbow Warrior's 1985 voyage when the ship was sunk in Auckland harbour by French government agents.

There was a strong political commitment to wind in Europe, the US and in China.

There are proposals in the US to aim for 20 per cent renewable power by 2020 or 2025.

Growth in wind generation had the potential to cut carbon dioxide CO2 emissions by 1.5 billion tonnes a year by 2020 or a total of almost 10 billion by then, Mr Sawyer said.

"No other energy generation technology can say that," Mr Sawyer said.

Fact box:

Heading: Windy weather

Wind power is storming up the charts of new power generation around the world

Global installed capacity in 2008: 27,051 megawatts

Market leaders for new capacity 2008:

United States: 8358 megawatts

China: 6300 megawatts

Total world wind power capacity: 120,798 megawatts

New Zealand: wind provides 3 per cent of total generation

Existing installed capacity: 325 megawatts

By early next year installed capacity should top 500 megawatts

Mainly as a result of the completion of Meridian's 142 MW West Wind project