Governor will woo Europe for eco-friendly industry
Energy - Ted Kulongoski will look for investors after flying Northwest's first nonstop flight to Amsterdam
February 01, 2008
The Oregonian
SALEM -- Gov. Ted Kulongoski plans to ride Northwest Airlines' first nonstop flight from Portland to Amsterdam on March 29, courting European companies considering big investments in Oregon.
Kulongoski's aides say he'll meet with manufacturers eyeing the state for solar- and wind-industry plants whose presence could spawn thousands of jobs in Oregon's growing renewable-energy sector. The governor will visit the capital of the Netherlands, Germany and possibly other countries.
"We've got a number of companies over there that we've been talking with, both in Amsterdam and in Germany," said Tim McCabe, the governor's economic-development policy adviser, adding that negotiations were preliminary. "Hopefully, when we're over there, we'll be able to make some announcements."
Kulongoski, who has traveled to China, Japan and South Korea as governor, is promoting Oregon as a location for renewable-energy manufacturing, noting eco-friendly laws, tax incentives and social attitudes. State officials are trying especially to recruit a factory for making polysilicon, the raw material in solar-panel cells, believing that a plant would then attract companies downstream in the industry.
Panel makers are scrambling for polysilicon, which is in short supply as solar demand explodes. "It's actually more valuable than money" to solar manufacturing companies, Allen Alley, the governor's deputy chief of staff, said.
One idea is to enter a pact with a polysilicon maker in which the company would build an Oregon plant, reserving some of the precious material for the state to mete out. The state could offer the reliable source to attract more solar-cell and solar-panel manufacturers, who would pay the polysilicon maker, Alley said.
Japan's Tokuyama Corp. considered building a $500 million poly plant near Coos Bay in 2006. But Bruce Laird, national business development executive for the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department, said Tokuyama is continuing to improve its technology before making such an investment.
Laird, Alley and McCabe declined to name the European companies considering Oregon, or where plants might be built. Polysilicon plants -- which resemble small oil refineries from the outside, with pipes, steam and shimmering air -- typically employ a few hundred workers who make good pay.
Kulongoski plans to catch the first of daily Portland-Amsterdam nonstop flights planned by Northwest Airlines. He will proceed to Munich for the world's largest photovoltaic-industry trade show, where manufacturing executives will gather in early April.
Kulongoski also will meet with executives of Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, which is considering Coos Bay for a terminal that would handle a new generation of megacontainer ships. That potential investment, reported last April as a $700 million outlay, would actually be a multibillion-dollar project that could build Coos Bay's port into a container hub rivaling the Port of Tacoma, the aides said.
Also during the trip, the governor plans to meet with European Union officials and other experts on carbon cap-and-trade programs, he said. "We're fairly confident we're going to meet with a wind prospect," Laird said.
McCabe said Kulongoski's journey of perhaps five days or a week would not be a classic trade mission heavy on ceremony and talk of exports. Instead, they said, the governor will focus on recruitment of investment and on business retention. He'll talk with managers of Vestas Wind Systems, for example, a Danish wind-turbine supplier with U.S. headquarters in Portland.
Officials are eager to expand Oregon's renewable-energy industry in part as a hedge against economic downturns. They recall the cost of the state's heavy reliance on high technology when the tech bust hit in 2000. Economic development officials will accompany Kulongoski to Europe, along with perhaps Oregon businesspeople; the Port of Portland is handling those arrangements.
As always, the aides said, Kulongoski will make a point of flying coach class. "I don't see him changing," McCabe said.
Richard Read: 503-294-5135; richread@aol.com
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