Will Illinois miss out on clean energy jobs?

Many wind turbines are made in Europe but the U.S. is finally playing catch up. One factory building parts for turbines opened right across the river in Fort Madison Iowa. A Michigan company is creating jobs building small scale wind generators.

Colorado and Montana had success attracting new factories this year with incentives.

Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems will eventually employ 600 workers at its 400,000-square-foot plant outside Windsor, about 60 miles north of Denver. It has about 200 workers now.

Ditlev Engel, Vestas' president and chief executive, said the United States was the company's largest market last year.

"We have great faith in the potential of our industry in this country," he said.

Gov. Bill Ritter attended the plant's ceremonial opening on Wednesday, calling it "a victory for our state" that will help attract other renewable energy companies to Colorado.

Besides creating new jobs, manufacturing turbines closer to where they'll be erected reduces the environmental impact of shipping them to their final destination.





While other states are creating new clean energy jobs, Illinois keeps throwing money down the black hole of "clean" coal projects which have never been proven to work. Will Illinois start attracting renewable energy jobs or will state leaders keep pandering to pipe dreams of reviving the coal industry?

There's nothing wrong with clean coal research, but when the coal industry comes asking for taxpayer subsidies (they always do), we have to ask ourselves what investments make the most sense for the people of Illinois.

Coal is the past and it's becoming an albatross for the downstate economy. We can choose new energy jobs or we can let downstate die slowly along with the coal industry. We could even give out-of-work members of the United Mine Workers first dibs on retraining for the new jobs.

Illinois is already falling behind. I'm waiting for state leaders to start showing real leadership on this issue instead of towing the line of coal industry lobbyists.