Obama touts 'clean energy' in Pennsylvania

A wind-turbine and wind-farm builder President Barack Obama will visit helped reduce wildlife death and injury, Pennsylvania's wildlife chief said.

Gamesa Technology Corp. -- part of a Spanish company of the same name that is reorganizing its manufacturing arm to increase its U.S. presence -- is one of 30 companies voluntarily helping "avoid, minimize and potentially mitigate any adverse impacts the development of wind energy may have on the state's wildlife resources," the Pennsylvania Game Commission said.

The Gamesa plant, 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia -- where Obama is to hold a "town hall" meeting with workers Wednesday about "building a 21st century clean-energy economy" -- provided "real-world examples of how this voluntary agreement has helped protect wildlife and their habitats, as well as reinforced the conservation goal of wind-energy companies," state Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife Habitat Management Director William Capouillez said Tuesday in a wind-energy report.

A 2004 Pennsylvania law requires 18 percent of the state's electricity to come from renewable and advanced energy sources by 2019. The Game Commission has cooperative, voluntary agreements with companies developing wind energy, one of the technologies competing for a share of Pennsylvania's alternative-energy market

Wind turbines convert wind energy into mechanical energy, which is used to make electricity. It accounts for about 3 percent of all U.S. electricity.

Obama plans Wednesday to "discuss his long-term plan to protect consumers against rising oil prices and decrease oil imports as well as key components of his broader energy plan to diversify all of our energy sources, ensuring a cleaner, safer and more secure energy future," the White House said.

Obama, who declared Monday he is a candidate for re-election, held a similar town hall meeting at the same Fairless Hills, Pa., plant March 11, 2008, when he ran for president the first time.

"Fairless Hills is doing what Americans have always done in times of challenge and uncertainty -- you're reclaiming your own future and you're turning Bucks County [Pa.] into a center for green jobs in America," he said at the time. "And these kinds of jobs will only become more important in the coming years, because green jobs are the jobs of the future -- not just because they pay well and can't be outsourced, and not just because they help strengthen our economy and lift up our middle class, but because they help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil and may just save this planet for our children."

Last week Obama outlined what he termed a plan for America's "energy security," calling for a 33 percent cut in oil imports by 2025.

On Earth Day 2009, he said, "The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy."

Gamesa projects its U.S. sales will increase an average 15 percent through 2013. China's sales will increase 20 percent, India's 166 percent and Central and South America's 50 percent, the company says. European sales will drop 20 percent.

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