“After 25-years of subsidy-driven financing of renewable energy, Main Street Americans are now taxed billions annually so the richest Wall Street bankers and corporations can avoid their tax burden by funneling money to big wind development.”

“We support the House provision to remove the PTC inflation adjustment. Retaining the 2.4¢/kwh subsidy in light of lower installation costs and increased production confers a bounty on big wind that far exceeds what 1992 lawmakers could ever have envisioned.”

– Linowes letter to lawmakers (below)

With the Energy Policy Act of 1992, a substantial tax credit has gone wind’s way. A quarter-century and many extensions later, this gravy train is at risk of being partly derailed.

It’s about time.

While conferees will reconcile the House and Senate versions of the tax bill this week, it appears that a haircut will happen to industrial wind power via the Production Tax Credit (reduced amount, stricter calculation).…

“RGGI proponents want us to believe that the program is delivering on a global environmental promise, but the reality is the nine-state cap and trade system is a colossal failure of resource allocation that should be repealed to leave more efficient market forces.”

“During the Ohio debate, safety repeatedly took a backseat to economic opportunity. However, the problem for the wind industry is that safety is increasingly an issue as the incidence of turbine failure appears to be accelerating.”

[Editor Note: A new feature at MasterResource will periodically review important wind-related news in the US and around the world. For proponents of fuel-neutral, let-the-market-decide energy policy, as well as those opposing industrial wind turbines for environmental reasons, the news is increasingly positive. It should be highlighted and shared to motivate grassroots energy activists.…

The much touted benefits of wind come with a fatal caveat: industrial wind turbines–suffering from intermittency, low average-usage factors, remote siting, relatively high (and all-up-front) costs–are uneconomic. So the fact that the Wind industry creates jobs and can piggyback on consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral, baseload power is no consolation.

The starting point of economics is that wants exceed resources. Market prices are therefore needed to allocate resources. Out of a wide range of technical possibilities (including wind-produced electricity), only a small subset is economic desirable as well. Think of a bullet train from Los Angeles to New York City–technically possible but uneconomic when compared to air travel. Only freely acting consumers in a government-neutral marketplace can decide the difference.

The new study cosponsored by the American Wind Energy Association, Electricity Markets, Reliability, and the Evolving U.S.…

“Catastrophic failure with wind turbines is not new, and it’s not rare…. Recent experience shows that not much has changed in the ensuing years.”

“Those of us who follow the wind debate closely have repeatedly witnessed cases where projects were permitted despite an obvious lack of meaningful evidence on a host of topics….  The recent Maryland [Dan’s Mountain } decision provides an important precedent that other states can and should now follow.

[Editor Note: A new feature at MasterResource will periodically review important wind-related news in the US and around the world. For proponents of fuel-neutral, let-the-market-decide energy policy, as well as those opposing industrial wind turbines for environmental reasons, the news is increasingly positive. It should be highlighted and shared to motivate grassroots energy activists. MasterResource is indebted to Lisa Linowes for authoring this new series.]…