The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Some extra good articles in this issue are:

True Costs of Wind Electricity

Study: Economic Impact of Wind Turbines

California PUC concludes that Solar & Wind costs are extravagant

EIA: Renewables get 9x the subsidies of all conventional sources, COMBINED

Grid Constraints on Wind and Solar Energy — Part 2

Wind Turbines Being Installed in Sensitive Bird Habitat on Massive Scale

A Review of the Impacts of Onshore Wind Energy Development on Biodiversity

Research: Bees and Wind Turbines

German Doctors Push to Halt Building of Wind Turbines

British Leader: No More Wind Project Subsidies & Local People Have Control

Kansas Governor Signs Deal on Renewable Energy Mandate

The con in consensus: Climate Change Consensus Among the Misinformed is Not Worth Much

IPCC Lead Author: 97% of Climate Experts is Bogus

Another IPCC Lead Author: Global Warming Caused By ‘Natural Variations’ In Climate

What’s Really Wrong With the Global Surface Temperature Record…

Yesterday’s post explained how market incentives can address environmental issues, including the believed-to-be negatives of climate change. Prices of inputs and outputs, utilizing resources even if they are subject to the tragedy of the commons, incorporate dynamic environmental changes. Markets, in other words, offer the potential for dynamic responses.

If climate change reduces the productivity of land for wheat production, for example, the price of land will be high relative to its productivity. This generates an incentive for wheat farmers to seek new places for wheat production where land prices are lower. Hence, the 2012 Bloomberg news headline, “Corn Belt Shifts North With Climate as Kansas Crop Dies.” Therefore even if the atmosphere as a GHG sink and GHG emissions themselves are not priced, prices correlated with the effects of climate change will induce adaptation.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science.

 It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Some (quite a few!) standout articles in this issue are:

NC House Passes Major Bill to Freeze its RPS

Wind Turbines are Less Effective than Assumed and CO2 Abatement Cost is Higher

Association Between Wind Turbines and Human Distress

Carbon Capture (and the hypocrisy of environmental groups)

Wind and Solar Transmission Planning

The Global Thirst for Low-Cost Electricity Continues Driving Coal Demand

Wind Energy Impact on Grid Stability and Operation

Let’s Run the Numbers: Nuclear vs Wind and Solar

Dominion: Offshore Wind is Too Expensive

Ten Reasons to Eliminate the Wind PTC

Climate Advisers Must Maintain Integrity

Earth Day: 22 Ways to Think about the Climate-Change Debate

See also two special sections this time, which include several reports on:

1) Climate data integrity, and the the accuracy of climate computer models

2) the Catholic Church and climate change…

Industrial wind is a net loser, economically, environmentally, technically and civilly. Let’s examine how.

• Economically:

New York State has some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S., a whopping 53 percent above the national average, in large part due to throwing billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars into the wind. High electricity costs drive people and businesses out and ultimately hurt the poor the most.

Why destroy entire towns, when just one 450 megawatt gas-fired combined cycle generating unit located at New York City (where the power is needed in New York state) operating at only 60 percent of capacity, would provide more electricity than all of the wind factories in the state combined — at about a quarter of the capital costs, and without all the negative civil, economic, environmental, human health and property value impacts of industrial wind factories, or all the additional transmission lines to New York City.…