“The government support — which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electric customers to pay higher rates — largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come. The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG — even Google.”
– Eric Lipton and Clifford Krauss, “A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search,” New York Times, November 11, 2011.
A recent article by Pete Danko, “Solar Power Hitting New Records in California” (Earthechling.com) documents the dramatic growth of solar energy generation facilities in California. Three large-scale solar PV installations recently on-line or underway are: California Valley Solar Ranch; Antelope Valley Solar 1, and Topaz Solar Farm, together representing a nameplate capacity of over 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt).…
“Many people point to the mandates of Ohio Senate Bill 221 or other such legislation in other states, which require the use of fashionable generation methods for electricity, as justification for subsidizing investment into economically questionable energy generation projects.
To me this is an exercise in circular logic, mandating that we have to use more expensive means of generating electricity, and then using the rising cost of electricity to justify subsidizing more expensive means of generating electricity.”
Jerry Graf – Effective Energy Strategy (March 2013)
In an editorial response printed in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (10/21/2013), four co-authors make the following points with regard to the Blue Creek Wind Farm and wind energy in general.
I have rearranged their words for brevity and direct the reader to the Journal Gazette website to read verbatim.…
“Speaking subjectively, when we provide natural gas, coal, or nuclear with subsidies, we get thousands and thousands of gigawatt-hours of constant, concentrated, and reliable electricity that drives our economy. When we provide solar and wind with subsidies, we do not get enough electricity to pay back even as much as the initial investment; and that electricity is not constant, not concentrated, and not reliable. In fact it has to be continuously backed up by natural gas, or nuclear, or coal just to keep the lights on.”
– Jerry Graf, Energy Subsidies in the USA (March 2013)
Earlier this week, in commentary under an article on a different site, I was informed that my assertions that current wind and solar technologies were less-than-effective alternative-energy sources were “not true.”
I was asked to search for information regarding “Xcel wind & solar”, and also informed that Xcel’s projects were providing energy with competitive Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) as low as $60MWh. …