:: rawblogXport ::

:: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 ::

Wind power gains momentum - By SANDY BAUERS, The Philadelphia Inquirer
The year Jim Bauer was born - 1952 - a massive steel mill was rising atop a former asparagus farm in Lower Bucks County, Pa.

Bauer would spend most of his working life in U.S. Steel's Fairless Works - until he was forced to retire in 2002, marking the end of an era.

Now, it's the beginning of another, and Bauer, 56, is part of that, too.

It's about wind.

Every morning at 6, Bauer is back at work in one of the old U.S. Steel buildings, heading a team that makes giant hubs for wind turbines.

Gamesa Technology Corp. Inc., part of a Spanish company that's one of the world's largest turbine makers, took over part of the property - now the Keystone Industrial Port Complex - in 2006 and is a key player in its transformation from rust to green.

Across the state, wind has become the dominant renewable-energy fuel.

Nine commercial wind farms with a total of 175 turbines have a capacity of 294 megawatts - enough to power 78,000 households. Five more wind farms under construction will double that by year's end.

About 70 more projects are in development.

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