Wind Tax Credits: 1992–2026 (never enough)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 9, 2026Ed. Note: This repost is timely given the end of the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit for unstarted wind and solar projects as of July 4, 2026, (One Big Beautiful Bill of 2025). For started (‘safe harbor’) projects, it is business-as-usual, which explains why the projects were started in the first place. If an unstarted project is completed by year-end (highly unlikely), it would also receive the ITC and PTC. Yesterday, the solar chronology was presented.
Wind power has relied on the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit, first established in 1992. The PTC has been extended 12 times: 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2022 (IRA).
Source: Energy Bad Boys.
The 2008 extension is not mentioned in the above graph.…
Continue ReadingSolar Tax Credits: 1978–2026 (never enough)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 8, 2026Ed. Note: This repost is timely given the end of the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit for unstarted projects as of July 4, 2026, pursuant to the One Big Beautiful Bill of 2025. For started (‘safe harbor’) projects, it is business-as-usual, which explains why the projects were started in the first place. If an unstarted project is completed by year-end (highly unlikely), it would also receive the ITC and PTC. Tomorrow, the history of wind power tax subsidization is chronicled.
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
– Milton and Rose Friedman, Tyranny of the Status Quo (1983), 115.
Aaron Nichols on LinkedIn provided a history of federal solar tax subsidies, beginning with Jimmy Carter. His point was to show that the numerous extensions (14 by my count) were bipartisan.…
Continue ReadingCanada Winning from US Nuclear Subsidies
By Kennedy Maize -- July 7, 2026The DOE move to prop up the nuclear big iron also prompts a recollection of the words of the great American philosopher Lawrence “Yogi” Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Alternatively, “Been there. Done that. Didn’t work.” Some 20 years ago, facing a 30-year decline in the U.S. nuclear power business (no reactor ordered after 1974 got built), the George W. Bush administration threw $8 billion in 2005 dollars each to two, two-unit AP-1000 reactor projects.
The Trump administration and its Department of Energy have made Canada–who many Americans other than Donald Trump consider our closest ally and good friend–happy. Recently (June 23, 2026), DOE’s loan office (grandiosity renamed the Office of Energy Dominance Financing) announced a $17.5 billion dollar loan program to subsidize building five as yet unidentified, two-unit 1,000-MW, nuclear power plant stations.…
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