“The following overview on these issues, and my concluding remarks, should leave little doubt as to the worthlessness and serious consequences of pursuing policies of supporting and implementing wind plants in particular. Will the other side respond in the interest of more informed public policy?”

As shown in Part I (Introduction & Summary), Part II (Analysis Approach & Implementation Costs), Part III (Total Costs), and Part IV  (Subsidies & Emissions), wind fails on the major considerations of cost and emissions. Yet unbelievably, it still enjoys general popularity and significant government support and subsidization. The answer must be in my response to question 1 in Part I: Wind is seen as a silver bullet – environmentally and politically.

On top of this, there are many other problems with wind that can cause serious, and needless, damage to society.…

Part I yesterday provided an introduction and summary of results; this post describes in more detail the analysis approach and implementation costs. Parts III and IV will cover the full costs and other results.

As will be seen, dealing with wind is not as easy as some would suggest.

Analysis Approach

This analysis looks at a 13 year period (years 0-12) in which the demand growth and plant retirement due to obsolescence/age will be each 2% per year compounded. Assuming year 0 is 2012, year 12 is 2025. Table II-1 shows the situation at year 12.

Table II-1 – Year 12 Situation for a Year 0 Demand Level of 1.0 TWh

Using demand of 1 TWh in year 0 allows easy scaling for a particular jurisdiction. For example in 2010 the total US electricity production was about 4,000 TWh.…

Special political favor at the local, state, and federal levels have created an artificial industry: industrial windpower. Massive turbines have resulted in negative ecological and economic effects. Rural towns and countryside across the USA have become the dumping grounds for massive infrastructure producing a paltry amount of remote, unreliable energy.

For many enjoying rural life, in particular, an invasion by industrial wind installations has turned environmentalism on its head.

New York State has more than its share of such malinvestment and damage. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently reported that tax exemptions by NYS’s Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) were not creating jobs and “shifting tax burdens” from mega-corporations to local residents.

As a result, we have the spectacle in Upstate New York of taxpayer-subsidized industrial wind installations driving people from their homes — while further endangering the populations of eagles, hawks, herons, cranes, bats, and all magnificent flying creatures.…

“The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and other experts estimate that well over 500,000 birds and countless bats are being killed annually by turbines. The subsidized slaughter “could easily be over 500” golden eagles a year in western states, Save the Eagles International biologist Jim Wiegand told me. Bald eagles are also being butchered. The body count for the two species could soon reach 1,000 a year.”

Extending the industrial wind production tax credit (PTC), in addition to its other problems, threatens eagles and other majestic birds in consequential ways. Do the Washington, DC environmentalists know this? Do they care?

Back in 1995, Paul Gipe’s book, Wind Power Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons) forthrightly dealt with the fierce, internal debate within the Sierra Club and other groups about the ‘avian mortality problem.”…