“Wind is almost a pure subsidy play, which means that Enron will be at odds with the market and must continually intervene into the political processes to extend subsides and/or create new ones. This is an expensive process and may trade away what we are lobbying for elsewhere.”

In my last seven (of 16) years at Enron, my title was Director of Public Policy Analysis. In this role, I was Enron’s libertarian, balancing, I suppose, Enron’s Left environmentalist John Palmisano, author of the infamous Kyoto memo of December 1997.

Enron had multiple profit centers around the global warming issue, which made my internal case for rejecting climate alarmism/policy activism an uphill one. But I got my licks in, including with some ‘e-mail wars’ with Palmisano. I have written numerous posts at MasterResource on Enron’s rent-seeking business strategy and will further set the historical record straight with a forthcoming book in Enron-inspired trilogy.…

“From all signs, the wind-energy field has reached that all-important turning point.”

– C. Flavin, Wind Power: A Turning Point (Worldwatch Institute: July 1981), p. 47.

Christopher Flavin, long associated with the Washington, DC-based Worldwatch Institute (see appendix below), was among the most thoughtful and prolific energy writer in the neo-Malthusian energy/environmentalist camp. His tone was positive, his writing clear, and his research well documented. Flavin’s work is scholarly compared to his (shrill) predecessor, Lester Brown, the founder of WorldWatch. Still, Flavin’s final products are little more than lawyer briefs for energy/climate alarmism.

Flavin is now paying the price for assuming alarmism to hype market-incorrect energies. He banked on wind and solar as primary energies despite the fact that they were dilute, intermittent, and environmentally invasive. Flavin pretty much forgot his early caution and warnings about windpower (see his introduction to Paul Gipe’s Windpower Comes of Age).…

“[Wind accident] data … is by no means fully comprehensive – CWIF believe that what is attached may only be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of numbers of accidents and their frequency…. Renewable UK confirmed that there had been 1,500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years. Data here … may only represent 9% of actual accidents. “

– Caithness Windfarm Information Forum (UK), Wind Turbine Accident Data to 31st December 2012.

My latest Forbes Political Energy post, Oil & Gas Isn’t Just One Of The Richest Industries, It’s Also One Of The Safest, examined the improving, impressive safety of the U.S. oil and gas industry compared to the much smaller (but accident prone) industrial wind power industry. The massive height of open-element wind turbines introduces hazards for high-up workers and from falling debris.…

[Update: Germany Stops Fighting Arithmetic and Ramps Up Construction of Economically Sensible Power Generation]

Two years ago we looked at the claim that wind generation can save money for power pool customers.  We found that the supposed savings could be realized only if the elephant in the room – the above-market feed-in tariffs – were ignored.

In other words, the total amount spent on electricity purchases from a power pool was augmented by the additional amounts consumers pay to fund the feed-in-tariff (FIT).  As long as wind generators can bid a low price but receive the higher FIT, then they have an incentive to underbid, thereby reducing pool prices, but not overall costs.

In addition, we looked at what an economically least cost system might look like in Germany over the next ten years. …