A 1976 study by the Department of Energy estimated that wind power could supply close to one-fifth of all U.S. electricity by 1995, a fact trumpeted by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in Congressional hearings in 1984.⁶⁰ Going into 1996, instead of 20 percent, wind had one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. electric market -- an overestimate of 20,000 percent.

In 1995 and 1996, the United States wind industry was very sick if not on its deathbed. National production was down in 1995. California's wind power capacity had fallen from its 1991 peak,⁶¹ leading a spokesperson of the California Energy Commission to conclude that "the wind energy industry in California has reached a plateau in its growth cycle."⁶² An even greater drop off was feared when wind power's PURPA contracts -- scheduled to pay as much as 14 cents per kwh for some 650 MW of wind capacity in California alone -- were scheduled to expire.⁶³ With the going market rate for spot generation estimated to be 2 cents per kwh, existing facilities with old technology, low capacity factors, and high maintenance faced retirement without new subsidies.⁶⁴ Plant modernization, such as proposed for Altamont Pass by Kenetech, also faced uncertainty given competition from sunk-cost capacity, the possible loss of tax credits from tax reform, and problems with the company's new technology (KVS-33 blades).⁶⁵

Kenetech, the market leader in the United States, declared bankruptcy in the spring of 1996 due to equipment problems at existing sites and a dearth of new business.⁶⁶ WindMaster went to a skeleton crew. Other firms such as FloWind and Cannon cut staff significantly.⁶⁷ Existing projects, operating under long-term operation and maintenance agreements with the same companies, faced new uncertainties -- one reason why the Sacramento Municipal Utility District canceled Phase II of its Kenetech wind farm project in the spring of 1996.⁶⁸ Numerous complaints were heard at state and federal forums that the industry would not survive without redoubled government support in an intensely competitive, restructured industry.

In an earlier draft of this book, I wrote:

Only a sizable taxpayer or ratepayer bailout will prevent the large majority of the state's heavily indebted wind power capacity from going the way of synthetic oil and gas production. The "power surge" from wind to help fuel "the coming energy revolution," (as anticipated by the Worldwatch Institute) will require a near miraculous technological turnaround and soon. Evidence exists that this turnaround will have to occur without the taxpayer or ratepayer largesse as in the past.

It is ironic yet illustrative how the eco-energy planning supply-side portfolio has contracted over time. Nuclear power was endorsed in the 1960s by the environmental establishment and abandoned in the 1970s.⁶⁹ Hydro was endorsed until the 1980s for new capacity. Will wind power, the choice of the 1980s, be abandoned in the 1990s?

Yet in 1997, with state and federal restructuring initiatives promising billions of dollars of new subsidies for qualifying renewables, prominently including wind, and a leading energy company entering into the moribund wind power field,⁷⁰ the industry seems to have escaped from the brink. The inordinate political clout of the eco-energy planners once again showed that while eventual market verdicts cannot be repealed, they can be delayed.