Federal and New York Officials Reward Spain’s Iberdrola at the Expense of U.S. Taxpayers, Job Seekers, and Electric Customers

Often it’s hard to tell whether highly questionable actions by federal and state government officials that reward special interests at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, job seekers, and electric customers are due to honest but misguided intentions, skullduggery, malfeasance, incompetence, or simple mistakes.

Consider, for example, the connections between: 

• Spain-based Iberdrola’s recent announcement that its net profit had doubled, and
• Actions affecting Iberdrola during the last few months by members of the New York State Public Service Commission (NYS PSC), NY Senator Charles Schumer, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Please recognize that “connecting the dots” among the actions of these officials will require careful reading of the following four pages.

Iberdrola (Spain) announces doubled profit on February 24:

“MADRID (AFP) – Spain’s Iberdrola, the world’s biggest wind-power generator, said Wednesday its annual net profit in the fourth quarter more than doubled to 795.3 million euros (1.07 billion US dollars)

“But the company reported that for the full year 2009 net earnings weakened due to weakness in core markets, which was offset by higher renewable energy output and greater income from its US unit.

Will Cape Wind Save Billions? Challenging a Study by Charles River Associates

[Editor note: Glenn Schleede wrote this letter-to-the-editor in response to  a news report published in the Cape Cod Times, “Cape Wind Savings Pegged in Billions”.]

Dear Editor:

Thanks for the article in your February 11, 2010, edition, but electric customers in New England should not believe the claim that the Cape Wind project will save them “Billions” on their electric bills.

Frankly, the numbers in the slick 9-page “consultant” study released by the developer of the Cape Wind project of $4.6 billion in savings over 25 years just don’t add up for at least four major reasons:

1. Huge Cost of Cape Wind electricity. The true cost of electricity from wind – particularly offshore wind — is huge. No one who is paying attention expects the price that Cape Wind charges for its electricity to be cheap.…

“The Wind Farm Scam” by John Etherington (the UK environmental civil war builds)

Editor Note: Author John Etherington, formerly a Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales, has extensively researched the implications of intermittently available renewable electricity generation, particularly wind power. He is a Thomas Huxley Medallist at the Royal College of Science and a former co-editor of the International Journal of Ecology.

 

 It may be a bit too late to order copies of the just published 198-page The Wind Farm Scam (Stacy International, 2009) by British ecologist John Etherington as a holiday gift, but it’s well worth getting (and giving) copies of the book as soon as you can secure them.

The book should be required reading for every high school, college, and university student — especially in those institutions offering energy and environmental programs.

Although the book written about the UK experience, most of its facts about “wind farms” are applicable worldwide. …

Cape Cod’s (Offshore) Wind Economics: Schleede Responds to Clean Power Now

Beware Windpower’s “Homes Served” Claims

Wind Stimulus: Bad Green