“Let’s focus on reducing the debt, increasing expenditure for research, and getting rid of the subsidies. Twenty years is long enough for a wind production tax credit for what our distinguished Nobel prize-winning Secretary of Energy says is a ‘mature technology’.”

In a speech last Wednesday on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Lamar Alexander (R- Tenn.) called on Congress to reject any efforts to add a four-year extension of the Production Tax Credit.

His learned statement brings out a number of facts that contribute to the debate–and explains why ‘subsidy fatigue’ has set in with windpower. Alexander also explains why the future belongs to the energy efficient, not dilute forms of energy that carry a large environmental footprint.

The full transcript of his remarks, published in The Chattanoogan, follows.…

I try not to play favorites between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to supporting or undermining the ideal of what Ludwig von Mises called the free and prosperous commonwealth. To this end, I have criticized Gov. Perry for his unfortunate windpower positions in Texas (see here and here), and I will do so again to the extent he buys into a government role in “green energy.”

Dessler Weighs In

A current spat is ongoing between Texas A&M climatologist Andrew Dessler and Perry, a front-runner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, over global warming science and policy.

Dr. Dessler has written two opinion-page editorials published by the Houston Chronicle in recent months (July 10th and September 2nd) arguing that the science is settled in favor of climate alarm, meriting proactive public policy.…

“He has been a stalwart in defense of wind energy in this state — no question about it.”

– Paul Sadler, executive director of the Wind Coalition, quoted in Kate Galbraith, “As Governor, Perry Backed Wind, Gas and Coal,” New York Times, August 21, 2011, p. 21A.

Texas curtailed electricity customers this Wednesday in the face of abnormally high temperatures and insufficient capacity. And as is to be expected this time of year, windpower is producing at its yearly lows–on Wednesday, about 9 percent of capacity (880 MW out of nearly 10,000 MW capacity), down from 18 percent earlier in the week.

As Texas revs up mothballed plants, one can only imagine how much state-of-the-art, high-utilization capacity the state could have ‘bought’ instead of wind power, which produces most of its juice when it is not needed.…

“The social usefulness of well-defined property rights, free exchange, and the system of relative money prices . . . has perhaps been demonstrated most convincingly by the catastrophic failure in the twentieth century of those societies that tried to function without them.”

– Paul Heyne, “Efficiency,” in David Henderson, ed., The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics (New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1993), p. 11.

“The wildcatters showed their gratitude to their city through their philanthropy. They were not the only ones who supported good causes in our region, but many of the foundations in Houston had their beginning in the oil and gas industries.”

– Joe Pratt, Cullen/NEH Professor in History and Business, University of Houston

George Will invoked the theme of Texas exceptionalism in a recent column pitching  the state’s governor Rick Perry for the Republican presidential nomination.…