[img_assist|nid=39310|title=Offshore wind farm|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=75]While the Walker administration and the GOP-controlled legislature continue to ruminate about making it easier to build nuclear power plants in the state while restricting wind power generators and driving that nascent business away, here's the latest arriving cluetrain -- and it's a high-speed bullet cluetrain from Japan. From the online environmental magazine Grist:
While Japan's water-dependent nuclear power plants suck and wheeze and spew radioactive steam, "there has been no wind facility damage reported by any [Japan Wind Energy Association] members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami," says association head Yoshinori Ueda.
Even the country's totally badass Kamisu offshore wind farm, with its giant 2 MW turbines with blades big as the wings on a jumbo jet, and only 186 miles from the epicenter of the largest quake ever recorded in Japan, survived without a hiccup thanks to its "battle proof design." As a result, the nation's electric companies have asked all of its wind farms to increase power production to maximum, in order to make up for the shortfalls brought about by the failure of certain other aging, non-resilient 20th-century technologies.
Yup. It may not be one of the front-page issues right now in Wisconsin politics, but every day, across the world, it becomes more and more clear that Walkerist anathema towards alternative, renewable energy may turn out to be one of his worst legacies.
GOP animus toward wind power had another negative effect Monday. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Chicago energy development firm Invenergy on Monday notified state regulators that it’s withdrawing plans to build a large wind power project south of Green Bay... . The company said it was concerned about moving forward because of the state of flux in Wisconsin’s regulatory climate when it comes to wind siting. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a bill that would sharply curtail wind development, and a legislative committee moved this month to block a less restrictive wind siting standard from taking effect."
Yes, while Walker and his legislative enablers are busy tilting at windmills and backpedaling on years of alternative-energy progress in the state, Japan stays alive because it made the investment.