Editor Note: The article below, a revised version of a post at Stop These Things, is an example of a grassroots volunteer propelled by the menace of industrial wind turbines. Her analysis of wind-stronghold Iowa is pertinent for the national debate in regard to a villain in Michael Moore’s game-changing 100-minute documentary, Planet of the Humans.
Iowa is a big wind state, having force-started the industry with a 1983 mandate for state utilities to buy power from 105 MW of wind capacity. With state subsidies in addition to the federal Production Tax Credit, wind literally pays for itself with in reduced corporate taxes. Wind is Iowa’s largest power source, with 10,000 MW of capacity generating 40 percent of the state’s electricity. It is also at the forefront of landfill issues of scrapped wind blades.…
Continue ReadingAll told, it is cheaper to surge price than have consumers worry and waste the most precious and depleting commodity of all, a person’s time.
The free market is needed even more in an emergency than in normal times. In the current Pandemic, a run on toilet paper and paper towels occurred as consumers stocked up in the fear that shortages would persist. Back in the 1970s, gasoline and other petroleum products, underpriced by federal law, caused shortages where consumers repeatedly topped off their tanks in long gasoline lines at the service station.
Surge pricing (the proper term for ‘price gouging’) is needed from time to time to save consumers from themselves. Increasing prices to the point that consumers know that there will be supply at the store prevents panic buying, not to mention the worry and lost time hunting for uncertain supply.…
Continue ReadingPaul Gaynor, CEO of Longroad Energy, a utility-scale wind and solar developer, recently said, “Pre-pandemic, there were great dreams and aspirations for a record-setting year.” Indeed, the renewable industry was well on its way this year to a new record: the $9 billion subsidy mark. Mr. Gaynor’s dreams and those of the industry are a burden to the rest of us.
Without the subsidies, it is almost certain [that wind and solar] would be only a niche industry, supplying perhaps a percent or two of our power, rather than the 26% it is currently supplying in Texas.
For the first time last year, electricity produced from wind in Texas almost equaled the amount produced from coal. This year, it appears as if wind is going to blow coal away.
Last year, each source produced about 20% of the electricity used on the grid.…
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