America’s Wind Manufacturing Industry

Wired has a story today on “The Birth of a U.S. Win Power Manufacturing Industry.” The story cites a World Resources Institute paper called “It Should Be A Breeze: Harnessing the Potential of Open Trade and Investment Flows in the Wind Energy Industry,” which claims that the American wind power industry prefers sourcing domestically because of the high transportation costs associated with outsourcing.

The article also references a report put out by the AWEA, Blue-Green Alliance and the United Steelworkers that explains the growth in the wind power manufacturing industry. According to that report:

At least three factors, according to the manufacturing report, are driving the growth of domestic manufacturing. First, eliminating the expense of transporting very large turbine parts offsets the higher cost of domestic labor. Second, imports that require dealing with currency fluctuations can often disadvantage the U.S. dollar. Third, the high cost of inventory and rapidly developing technology makes just-in-time manufacturing necessary — and proximity preferences domestic manufacturers.

The full Wired story can be read here.

– The Editors