It’s a report about a mature power-generating industry going about its business, preparing a new 300-megawatt plant, opening regional offices and a local operations office.

So what?

Only the refusal by those in the traditional power-generating establishment to recognize a peer makes it important to tell this story.

In 2007, wind energy built more new generating capacity than either coal or nuclear; only natural gas built more new capacity.

The U.S. Department of Energy says it is perfectly feasible to expect the wind energy industry to be producing 20% of U.S. power by 2030. That is the share of the power market nuclear energy has captured in the last 30 years.

Nuclear might have captured more of the power market had there not been a disaster at Chernobyl, a near disaster at Three Mile Island, a failure to solve the problem of what to do with the waste and problems with carcinogenic leaks and spills from France to Japan. Wind energy expects no disasters, generates no waste and has been known to cause nothing worse than headaches. Some complain it despoils the landscape; they haven’t seen mountaintop removal coal mining or what Chernobyl looks like.

NewEnergyNews will keep reporting this story as long as the good folks in the traditional power generating industries keep making it one.

The real story about to need reporting is how the wind energy industry and the solar energy industry respond to the failure of Congress to extend their tax credits beyond December 31, 2008. It is an odd situation. Neither political party actually objects to the tax credits, only to how Congress would pay for them from federal budget funds.

There is every reason to think a lame duck session of Congress, after the November election, will provide the extensions. But there has been every reason to believe Congress would not force such vibrant industries to face such a ridiculous dilemma to begin with.

There is also every reason to believe that the next Congress would rush achieve such an easy win early next by extending the credits and even making them retroactive. But reasons to believe do not seem to necessarily correlate with what happens in the unreasonable reality of politics.

Finally, it would be interesting to see if the Renewable Electricity Standards (RESs) now in place in some 28 states would sustain the New Energy industries even without federal subsidies.

“Interesting,” but not desirable. Just like the “reasonable” that does not correlate with reality.