The American Wind Energy Association (‘AWEA’) claims big wind had a spectacular 2015, but we looked past the slick advertising and found the same AWEA rhetoric with extra pixie dust applied.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (“AWEA”) big wind had a spectacular 2015.
Jobs were up 20%, emissions down, more wind megawatts were installed than any other fuel source, and happy landowners pocketed a cool $222 million for their trouble. The media dutifully sang America’s good fortune. Imagine: a last Congressional vote in December mandating $15.8 billion in wind PTC payouts and everything is now right as rain. That is, until you look past the slick advertising and realize the boasted gains are nothing more than AWEA rhetoric with extra pixie dust applied.
The “Jobs Game”
The industry touted 15,000 jobs added in 2015, bringing the total to 88,000, including 1,800 new manufacturing positions.[1]…
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“I wish Senator Whitehouse were here. Because what he is doing to the free speech of those companies and anyone associated with it is unconstitutional. And I think he should apologize or resign.”
“You violate the constitution, you resign. I thought that was the policy in the United States.”
– Alex Epstein. Testimony before the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. April 13, 2016.
“I’ll never forget this hearing. We have a philosopher who wants Senator Whitehouse to resign. Senator Whitehouse, who is working every day to stop carbon pollution and save lives.”
– Sen. Barbara Boxer [3]
I remember encountering Alex Epstein back in 2011. He was working at the Ayn Rand Institute–and full time on energy. Wow, I thought. Here was someone who could add a philosophical voice to the political economists arguing the macro issues of depletion, pollution, and climate change, and the micro issues of price controls, trade restrictions, access restrictions, etc.…
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Earlier today, the online subscription news service Greenwire published this item:
OBITUARY: Hurricane researcher-turned-climate denier dies at 86
William Gray, who pioneered hurricane forecasting tools as a professor at Colorado State University and voiced skepticism of climate change models, died Saturday.
The university said Gray, 86, died peacefully at home with his family.
Gray and his researchers were among the first to link the El Niño phenomenon to the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea in their predictions.
“He consistently issued these forecasts for over 30 years, a track record unparalleled for university predictions,” said Phil Klotzbach, one of Gray’s researchers.
Gray, a Washington, D.C., native and alumnus of George Washington University, questioned the science of climate change in his later years.
“How can we trust climate forecasts 50 and 100 years into the future (that can’t be verified in our lifetime) when they are not able to make shorter seasonal or yearly forecasts that could be verified?”
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