New York State Windpower: Enough Business/Government Cronyism

By Mary Kay Barton -- December 10, 2012 5 Comments

While Invenergy waits for the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) to be extended by this ‘Lame Duck’ Congress, as expressed in the 12/4/12 Batavia Daily News article: “Orangeville windfarm waits on the tax credit,” there are thousands of local tax- and rate-paying citizens who are eagerly awaiting the expiration, permanent expiration, of this $0.022/kWh subsidy. The PTC is nothing more than a tax-shelter-generator for wealthy, multinational, rent-seeking corporations like Invenergy.

How does a business plan dependent on massive taxpayer-funded handouts for profitability make it past the drawing board in the first place?!? Any of us would have filed such a plan to its rightful place—in the garbage can.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)– with the help of political cronies in high places–have attempted, and failed to push the PTC through various bills, not once, not twice, but FIVE (5) times in a little over a year.…

Continue Reading

Orwellian Freedom: Green Party Platform (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 7, 2012 4 Comments

[Ed. note: Part I on Monday examined the Green Party’s Green New Deal; today’s post examines the rest of the Green Party’s platform with energy and the environment. With Obama’s reelection, it should not be forgotten that the philosophy and positions below–although not feasible for wholesale implementation–remain end-states for John Holdren and other Administration officials].

In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, the Ministry of Truth had three slogans: “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” and “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” Enter the deep-ecology agenda, which is about controlling your resources and your life in the name of freedom for spaceship Earth.

Imagine Green Orwellian Freedom. Some of us would work in the public sector as green planners. More would work for government as enforcers, making sure the private sector is acting “sustainably.”

Continue Reading

Twenty Bad Things About Wind Energy, and Three Reasons Why

By -- October 24, 2012 47 Comments

[Note this post is the most popular article ever published on Master Resource. It has been now been significantly updated. Go here to see the current version.]

Trying to pin down the arguments of wind promoters is a bit like trying to grab a greased balloon. Just when you think you’ve got a handle, it morphs into a different shape and escapes your grasp. Let’s take a quick highlight review of how things have evolved with wind merchandising.

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as even in the late 1800s it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs for power. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on – 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to EVER do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate energy sources as horse and oxen power).…

Continue Reading

Proud NIMBYISM Against Windpower

By Nick Stanger -- October 11, 2012 10 Comments

“If protecting my individual property rights and values makes me a NIMBY, then I wear the label proudly.”

I am a confessed NIMBY with strong feelings about government-enabled environmental degradation. I am not anti-windpower per se; I am, however, anti-bad ideas and anti-wasteful government spending of taxpayer money.

I am a NIMBY, but so is just about everyone. There are 314 million people in the U.S., virtually all of whom care about protecting their private property against intrusion, particularly unnecessary, wasteful, government-enabled intrusion. Critics are in denial of their own behavior when they criticize NIMBYs in the face of what some of us have faced with a proposed windpower development in our backyard.

“Quiet Enjoyment”

‘Quiet enjoyment’ is the legal right of a property owner to enjoy his/her property in peace without interference.…

Continue Reading

Climate Alarmism: Our Sanity and Wallets Need a Break

By -- September 15, 2012 16 Comments Continue Reading

Local Wind Subsidies: New York State's Money-Road to Nowhere

By Mary Kay Barton -- August 1, 2012 18 Comments Continue Reading

EPA's Flawed Science: From Pretense of Knowledge to Fatal Conceit

By Kathleen Hartnett White -- June 5, 2012 11 Comments Continue Reading

U.S. EPA: Playing Fast and Loose with Health and Welfare

By -- May 27, 2012 8 Comments Continue Reading

Big Wind Subsidies: Time to Terminate?

By -- May 8, 2012 11 Comments Continue Reading

Health Effects of Windpower on Residences: Canadian Debate Update

By Sherri Lange -- April 19, 2012 1 Comment Continue Reading