A common question is: how many times has the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power production been extended since the original law was enacted in 1992.

The answer is a dirty dozen, which makes the federal lifeline to wind power 28 years old. That’s old age for a government subsidy, particularly one where the industry itself has long proclaimed its impending competitiveness.

“The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive,” stated a representative of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) back in 1986. [1] And Joe Romm a quarter-century later: “It is clear that solar and wind are competitive in many situations right now.” [2]

And so Milton Friedman’s warning that infant industries receiving government protection never seem to grow up has a stellar example.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy, environmental and education policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every two± weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:
FERC Orders PJM to Expand Minimum Offer Price Rule
Another perspective on the important FERC ruling
Intermittent & Unreliable Wind & Solar The Greatest Subsidy Scam In History
The Evolution of Electricity Rates
Wind power in France: a lie and a swindle?…

Editor Note: The important role of defunct Enron Corp on climate issues has been well documented at MasterResource. This post by Bruce Stram, who served as Enron’s chief economist for most of his 20 years at the corporation, adds to the historical record. [Part II tomorrow will describe Enron’s revisionist view of the natural gas resource base that was related to promoting gas as a “bridge fuel” to “sustainability.”]

Several papers I had written made me Enron’s environmental policy lead by 1992. I was blessed with a CEO/Chairman Ken Lay who understood that a carbon tax or cap and trade was good for natural gas relative to other fossil fuels, and we were of course a natural gas company.

We had developed a theme about the environmental goodness of natural gas.…

“[W]e must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune-tellers — and I have them and you have them, and we all have them, and they want to see us do badly…. They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the ’70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives.”

“We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate our liberty. America will always be the proud, strong, and unyielding bastion of freedom.” (Trump, January 21, 2020)

Denunciation, even shock, came from the establishment media, including the Washington Post (“Trump Drops a Climate Bomb“) and the Los Angeles Times (“At Davos, Trump Rejects Climate Crisis“).…