
Whenever I propose a grand design for something I always break the topic into three sections. First, why it is a good thing and how it will work. Second, who will oppose the change and third, how to overcome this opposition.

If Jerome is serious about promoting wind power he needs to focus on items two and three, the case for wind power has already been proven.

Who will object is fairly easy to determine - a minimum the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, including mining, transport, refining and the governments which get revenue from these activities.

All these interest groups will need to be bought off. It is not enough to say that wind will provide new jobs, it won't provide new jobs to those in the existing industries. It will provide different jobs. You will never get the support of a Kentucky coal miner by explaining about those building wind farms in Texas.

You also can't offer retraining and other transition programs. Workers have seen over the past 20 years that such programs don't work.

Also remember that the government of Kentucky will be against change as well, including its representatives in congress. You can see a good example of how this regionalism played out over the big three auto bailout. The Japanese auto firms are in Kentucky and Tennessee and the senators from these states opposed the bailout for the firms in Michigan and Ohio.

So what's the plan to get past the entrenched interests?

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Thu Jan 22nd, 2009 at 01:56:26 PM EST

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