“Georgia Power says the Vogtle project creates lots of jobs and buys lot of building materials. The same could be said about the construction of a large pyramid. The question should be about the value of the costly project verses other things that might have used the labor and materials.”

Thanks to Jonathan Gruber of Obamacare fame, we now know all about behind-the-scenes development of government policies that override consumer wishes, hide the truth, and generally regard the public with contempt.

In Georgia, one Dick Spellman, a consultant for the Public Service Commission, is the sinister architect behind the PSC’s imposed Demand Side Management (DSM) program administered by the utility.

The premise of mandatory DSM programs is that consumers are too stupid to know what is good for them; but policy experts, like Spellman, do.…

“Cape Wind was wrong project, wrong time, wrong place. It was too big and costly. Its impacts were poorly mitigated and its benefits highly questionable. In the end, it was the regulatory arrogance of the Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the Obama Administrations that did the most harm. A lot of people were offended and willing to stand up to the abuses. Remember, it was Massachusetts’ spirit that triggered the Revolutionary War.”

Cape Wind was supposed to be America’s first offshore wind project. Chief sponsor Jim Gordon labored since 2001 (14 years!) on his vision of 130 massive spinning fans sited in shallow federal waters off New England’s historic coastline (468 MW at maximum capacity). Mr. Gordon was the darling of environmental groups and green-minded politicos who pushed big wind at any price.…

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 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Greed Energy Economics:

More on the Real Cost of Wind Energy

Solar Leases Sales Pitches (like wind): Overstate the benefits

The renewable energy sector needs to commit to getting off subsidies

Wind Project Caused Illinois Property Value to Tank by 56%

Negative Pricing in The NE Electric Pool Cost Ratepayers a Fortune

Is Cape Wind Running Out of Time?…

“Wind turbines installed in and close to eagle habitats will always kill eagles, and there are no exceptions. Years ago, in the 1990s, radio tracking studies proved that wind turbines were the number one killer of eagles, but the study authors downplayed this, claiming there were enough eagles in the population to replace those lost from turbines. Nothing today supports that claim.”

[Part I was yesterday]

It is clear now that some 31,000 eagle carcasses have been shipped to the Department of the Interior’s Denver Repository since the beginning of 1997. A very high percentage of them were killed by wind turbine blades and transmission lines directly associated with wind energy installations.

However, current rules, and ongoing refusals by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to comply with requests that it release data on where and how the eagles were killed, make it impossible to get honest and accurate data from the government or wind installation operators.…