Green Leaf Report

Today, on the first full day of the WindPower 2008 conference, we attended press conferences and worked the exhibition floor some more.  The expiring federal production tax credit (PTC) is getting a lot of attention and a lot of press.  If this tax credit does not get extended this year, the wind energy industry is expected to shed 70,000 to 125,000 jobs, depending on which estimate we use.

Alexander Karsner, the Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Energy, was very animated on his panels today that the time to change the entire PTC structure is now.  He argued that it is an archaic accounting set that is too unpredictably available.   Executives from GE, Vestas, Horizon Energy, Babcock and Brown, and FPL also spoke to this issue.  The erratic nature of US public policy on renewable technologies and rebates is causing a lot of concern- an actionable solution is missing, though.  The best solutions the large companies have to offer to prevent massive layoffs appears to be diversification of their portfolios into markets outside of the US.  But all of the executives claimed that the US had the best wind resources available.

Walking the exhibition hall, I spoke with multiple companies that are hiring.  After hearing all of the executive concern about the expiring tax rebates, I asked recruiter after recruiter if they were also concerned about the tax rebate and upcoming layoffs.  Across the board I was told, “No.”  The demand seems to be so high - maybe they feel a little less business wouldn’t be noticed for a while.  A lot of people are asking for resumes here.  I was actually surprised- I expected the recruiters to be flooded with people looking for a job in a recession market, but most of the recruiters looked a little desperate to talk to more people.  The hiring section of the exhibition floor was almost barren compared to the crowds around other booths. I take it as a good sign:  Many people are already employed in the industry and are not looking for jobs or job changes.  That leaves room for more people to hire in as the industry continues to grow.  The conference has attracted over 12,000 people already in 2008, blowing out the earlier estimate of 10,000, and more people are showing up every day.