Nordex AG, the German wind turbine manufacturer is having trouble finding staff in East Germany - a part of the country with 20% unemployment.

"The market for engineers is non-existent here," says Margrit Mertens, head of personnel at Nordex, whose main plant is located in Rostock in one of the east's most depressed areas.

So it's hardly surprising that they are looking to expand in China as I wrote here on November 22nd. You wouldn't really look at Germany today as a profitable manufacturing centre compared to the potential and returns of the developing world.

Not long after Suzlon started selling wind turbines into China, now Germany's Nordex has the first multi-megawatt turbines now leaving the new joint assembly facility in Yinchuan. "This is a major step forward for us. Local production facilities are crucial for success in China in the future. And what we’re talking about is one of the world’s largest growth market," says Thomas Richterich, commenting on the delivery of the first 1.5 MW turbine. The Chinese government wants to increase the installed wind farm capacity from a current volume of around 1,500 MW to 30,000 MW by 2020.

It's curious how wind turbines have stopped getting bigger. 3 years ago, I wrote a paper for the Economic Research Council on the future and cost of renewable electricity entitled Recharging The Nation and I assumed that by 2010, 5 MW wind turbines would be standard. This has not happened. It is now thought that the optimal size for wind turbines is 2.5 MW or less. And manufacturing has still not moved from batch-processing to continuous manufacturing. To do so with massive 5 MW turbines is even less likely.

I still think though that really, really large wind turbines are the future. The logic is inescapable - double the size of the windswept area and receive eight times the power generation.

So wait for a fall in steel prices and go figure.

Gamesa closed up today by nearly 3% on what turned out to be a record close for the Madrid Stock Exchange.

Gamesa has no doubt also benefitted from a recent contract worth EUR 2.3 billion from Iberdrola - the largest ever in the history of the wind sector.

Of course it helps Gamesa to get the business when Iberdrola is its largest shareholder.

Here we go again. In a scene that is being repeated continually in many corners of the world, a windfarm developer - in this case, unusually, Vestas - has had its application thrown out by a combination of planners and local politicians.

Vestas makes wind turbines and has a blade manufacturing unit on the Isle of Wight. And yet, the company which employs 600 on this tiny island is not able to site a wind turbine there.

Windpower is increasing worldwide, but far, far more windpower projects never get off the drawing board because of planning objections. That's why I think there's a strong case for the industry concentrating on sparsely populated poor countries and exporting it through high voltage transmission cables to richer countries.

Gamesa can count on the support of US Steelworkers in the rustbelt - hardly surprising because wind turbines need a lot of steel in the towers.

The company set up its US Headquarters and a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. And Governor Rendell wants to go further, calling for a bold new national initiative to develop renewable sources of energy. That's as maybe but one thing is for sure - as a Democrat he will not have any trouble holding on to his governorship at these elections.