“Without the PTC, any mandated wind generation would be an even bigger political problem because its cost inflation would be exposed. The wind-is-competitive-with-fossil-fuels hyperbole would be refuted in real time.”
Congress enacted the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) in 1992 as a temporary measure for an “infant” industry. Decades and nine extensions later, it is time to eliminate the PTC.
Subsidized wind power inflates electricity costs, compromises taxpayers, and destabilizes the electric grid (wind-generated electricity is intermittent). The huge tax credit allows pricing that ruins the economics of steady, conventional generation sources. Wind power, indeed, is the perfect imperfect energy.
The PTC It is most beneficial to wealthy wind developers who are able to reduce their tax rate at the expense of the rest of us. It is past time to end corporate welfare for this mature, and in their own words, competitive, wind industry.…
Continue Reading“There was no reason to prohibit the manufacture of incandescent lamps, other than for ideological reasons, when LEDs were becoming available. Industry and science, under the free market system, had already developed the technology that would replace incandescent lamps in a far less costly and far more orderly manner.”
People striving to improve energy efficiency and cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions often over-simplify lighting and do economically inefficient, counterproductive things. This led to Congress needlessly prohibiting the manufacture of most types of incandescent bulbs to cut CO2 emissions. This was an early manifestation of CO2 hysteria and ignored advances in lighting technology and the purpose of lighting.
Some Background
Lighting has three primary purposes: (1) Facilitate seeing; (2) Safety; (3) Esthetics. Each is considered in some detail below.
1.…
Continue Reading“Offshore wind is essentially a government-made market that would not exist in the U.S. but for a massive intervention from Washington and an ‘at-any-cost’ mentality at the state level. Of the alleged 15,650 MW of offshore wind in DOE’s pipeline, a very small fraction represents projects proffered by private entities.”
It’s official. At a White House summit last month, the Obama administration publicly backed its new government program – offshore wind. With America’s first offshore project now under construction, and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest analysis showing 21 projects totaling 15,650 megawatts in the works, the political boost could trigger a development boom.
But don’t count on it. The already uneconomic on land is only worse off in the waters.
Washington’s Wishful Thinking
Washington’s support for wind power is ideological, steeped in wishful thinking about what could be built, both on- and off- shore.…
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