AS DENMARK DE-EMPHASIZES WIND POWER, GRANHOLM AND THE LEFT HEAD INTO THE WIND

Granholm's energy answer isn't blowing in the wind

In her State of the State speech, Gov. Jennifer Granholm outlined a restructuring of Michigan's energy infrastructure that aims to meet this industrial state's future energy needs with wind power.

The plan is radical but hardly new.

The governor's policy closely parallels the failed experiment of Denmark - a similar peninsular water state that has invested billions of dollars in wind generation during the last 25 years.

In an interview with The Detroit News after her address, the governor was curiously unaware of Denmark's experience, even though she toured Scandinavian countries in 2007 and cited them as models of an alternative energy future.

But it is crucial that the state understand the lessons of Denmark and the very real limitations of wind power.

With close union ties, the governor is an advocate for government work programs.

She is also a global warming true believer.

During her tenure in office, she has eschewed fundamental economic reforms and instead spent heavily on road and infrastructure projects while trying to marry her green and labor constituencies under central planning schemes (a new law she pushed mandates 10 percent renewables by the year 2015) to save the planet and guarantee jobs at the same time.

... Now, with Michigan reeling from a nation-leading 10.6 percent unemployment rate, the governor is proposing her boldest scheme yet.

She devoted the bulk of her State of the State address to an energy policy that would wall off this state from America's cheapest energy source, coal, and instead build thousands of windmills to power its industrial infrastructure.

In the 1970s, Denmark's government also experiment with ridding itself of imported energy sources, namely coal.

Today, Denmark's energy prices are the highest in Europe at a staggering 30 cents per kilowatt-hour - more than three times the cost of Michigan's electric rates (about 8 cents per kWh), which are already high among its Midwestern neighbors.

The current Danish government has cut back drastically on putting up wind mills in Denmark - ther are only offshore projects...

They've realized that the only way to make money on wind is to export the turbines to suckers in other countries!!!