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 three weeks this newsletter is compiled to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters.

Some articles of particular note in this issue are:

 Wind Turbine Infrasound: Terms & Conditions Defined

A very good graphic for Wind Energy Noise

EIA Report: Subsidies Continue to Roll In For Wind and Solar

Differences between Real Science and Man Made Global Warming Science

Climate Science Doubts — Because the Science is Bad

The Tip of the Climate Spending Iceberg

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Greed Energy Economics:

Renewable Energy — the Most Expensive Policy Disaster in History

EIA Report: Subsidies Continue to Roll In For Wind and Solar

Property purchasers win award due to failure to disclose wind project

Kansas Legislators debate killing their RPS

A Study about the Kansas RPS

Study concludes that NC’s RPC costs each citizen $1500± per year

Archive: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good

Archive: Study finds wind energy increases cost of electricity and CO2 emissions

Blowing More Tax Dollars on Subsidies

Wind Turbines Blamed for Pushing Up Rates

German Companies May File $22 Billion Lawsuit due to wind energy, etc.…

 Editor note: The advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the American Energy Alliance (AEA), has launched a new analysis and advocacy program, The American Energy Scorecard. A description of the new initiative from AEA follows.]

Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. It touches every aspect of American life— fueling our transportation systems, powering our offices, and heating and lighting our homes. Affordable, abundant, and reliable energy empowers us to grow and prosper. In fact, energy is the single most important mechanism for alleviating poverty and promoting prosperity.

It is in the spirit of promoting energy prosperity that the American Energy Alliance has launched the American Energy Scorecard, the first and only free-market congressional energy accountability scorecard.

The American Energy Scorecard educates lawmakers about the most important energy votes of the year and empowers the American people to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they make in Washington.…

“All solar power plants examined in this study show electricity costs two or more times conventional sources of ‘reliable’ electricity provided by coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. Overly enthusiastic promotions of solar energy by government officials, environmental groups, and those selling solar energy has led to grievous losses to taxpayers in the Southeast.”

A recent report by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), “Filling the Solar Sinkhole: Billions of Bucks Have Delivered Too Little Bang,” found:

In spite of government’s best efforts to encourage innovation by solar energy companies and encourage Americans to rely more heavily on solar electricity, solar power continues to be a losing proposition. American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. 

“While political capitalism as an economic system has barely been recognized, the building blocks that form a theoretical foundation for political capitalism are firmly in place and well-accepted. In political science and sociology, the ideas of elite domination and biased pluralism are mainstream concepts that are a fundamental part of political capitalism.”

Political capitalism is an economic and political system in which the economic and political elite cooperate for their mutual benefit. While the essential idea of political capitalism has a long history, it has not been recognized as a distinct economic system.

In part, this is due to the 20th-century vision of economic systems as capitalist, as socialist, or a mixed economy that contains elements of both capitalism and socialism. It has also been due to the frequent vision of government as an institution that acts in the public interest, corrects market failures, and controls the activities of business.…