Environmentalists vs. Biomass (PTC Expiration Carveout Urged)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 19, 2012

“Although we strongly support policy efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and health-damaging air pollution from fossil fuels, we are concerned that the PTC includes support for biomass combustion technologies that both contribute to climate disruption and threaten public health.”

– Letter of December 11, 2012, to Senate and House Leaders from 40 environmental-related organizations (reprinted below)

Biomass energy has been called the air emission renewable. Technical studies have concluded that energy made from plants and woody matter can require so much (fossil) energy and stir up release of carbon dioxide as to negate CO2 reduction.

This problem has been long recognized in the environmental community. “Although biomass is a renewable resource, much of it is currently used in ways that are neither renewable nor sustainable,” stated Chris Flavin and Nicholas Lenssen in 1994.…

POWER's Peltier: Show Your CO2 Hand or Fold, Windpower

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 18, 2012

“Forgotten by many proponents is the justification for the PTC in the first place: to reduce CO₂ emissions…. [Yet] … many utilities with large amounts of wind generation steadfastly refuse to release operating data for analysis. I suspect to do so would mean the release of empirical data to build the opposition’s case for insignificant CO₂ reduction and poor operating economics. I was unable to find one study of existing wind energy installations that found the CO₂ reductions predicted by AWEA.”

Robert Peltier, editor-in-chief of POWER magazine, is an honest broker. He understands the technical side of electrical generation as a professional engineer. He knows power generation in practice from his years of industry experience on the regulated and the nonregulated sides. He has taught the subject as a tenured professor.…

AWEA: Stuck on Stupid (Bode bails wealth-destroying, rent-seeking racket)

By Lisa Linowes -- December 17, 2012

“The sheer ridiculousness of the [six-year, front loaded PTC extension] outraged Congressional members and may well have changed the debate. It’s NO coincidence that within 24-hours of AWEA’s poorly received proposal, Denise Bode bailed. A move that sudden suggests the industry thinks it’s better off without her and probably without AWEA’s inflexible, out-of-touch campaign.”

The American Wind Energy Association’s relentless, year-long lobbying campaign to secure extension of the wind production tax credit (“PTC”) hit major headwinds last week, which precipitated the abrupt resignation of its CEO, Denise Bode.

Branded the “Save USA Wind Jobs,” AWEA’s plan tried to stigmatize Congressional members from Red and windy states with the argument: oppose the PTC, and you oppose American jobs.

But rather than gaining support, resistance intensified to extending the PTC. With only two weeks remaining in 2012, it’s not certain what will happen with the subsidy, but one thing is clear: AWEA’s robotic jobs jab has chilled its effectiveness.…