Here’s a concept the so-called environmentally conscious wind folks should love … take what is already there and, rather than waste it, utilize it for energy production.

Yet, just such an idea is being considered in Ohio and the wind folks don’t like it.  Why?  Simple … the wind folks won’t make any money from the process.

Seems Ohio legislators are considering granting “green” status to a process which, according to the Power Engineering article, “would use the foul gases from its blast furnace as a fuel rather than a waste gas that it must by law now flare.”

AK Steel has already received a $30 million grant from the Department of Energy and  the EPA seems to like the concept.  Heck, even the Ohio Environmental Council seems on board.

All this, of course, has the wind industry, represented in the article by Iberdrola – a wind giant based in Spain – gasping for air.  I can understand Iberdrola’s concern that this action by the Ohio legislature will hurt their profit picture since, if you recall, their home country has recently made drastic cuts to the taxpayer handouts provided back home.  After all, what’s a profit based business like Iberdrola to do when, lacking government handouts and forced usage, its product won’t produce a profit?

The bigger problem for the wind business is that taxpayers are growing tired of these energy impostors shoving their tin cups in their faces while receiving so little in return and, increasingly, the US Congress seems to be getting the message loud and clear.

Read the full Power Engineering article here – Energy proposal would help AK Steel; Wind farm developers protest calling blast furnaces green energy.