[Editor note: Mike Riley, editor of Fabricating & Metalworking magazine (bio at end), took a neutral look at a new major manufacturing project and offers his opinions here.]
The total government subsidy given to industrial windpower rivals the price of natural gas paid by power generators– yet wind still cannot compete without mandates. With our nation being challenged to reduce its debt and shrink the federal budget, realistic business economics is confounding the hype about this once darling of renewable energy.
New Wind Plant for Port of Muskogee?
Muskogee is an economic center in eastern Oklahoma that country singer Merle Haggard commemorated in the old country song “Okie from Muskogee,” a hit back in 1969. Now the city is better known for operating the Port of Muskogee that is located at the edge of North America’s wind corridor.…
Continue ReadingTwo years ago, Spain’s fixation on renewables and “green jobs” was praised by President Obama as a success story worthy of our emulation. With Obama making renewables a centerpiece of his administration with an eye toward the 2012 election, the obvious question is: How is Spain doing today?
The Initial Debate
My editorial “Spain Is Tilting at Windmills” (May 2009) presented the results of a study prepared by Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, PhD, an economics professor at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. The report, “Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources,” released in March 2009, was a comprehensive review of the long-term effects of Spain’s renewable energy policy on jobs and the economy. In sum, the study found that for every green job created, 2.2 private industry jobs were lost, and each “green job” cost the Spanish government 571,000 euros ($790,000 today).…
Continue Reading[Editor note: This response to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee’s March 21, 2011, “White Paper on a Clean Energy Standard” is by Glenn R. Schleede, citizen, taxpayer and consumer. He is retired after working more than 35 years on energy policy matters in the federal government and the private sector. ]
Thank you for undertaking a de novo review of the matter of a potential “clean energy standard.’ Such a review is far preferable to previous attempts to force such a standard on the people of the United States without adequate consideration of its cost and benefits.
My comments are directed towards fundamental issues that are not addressed directly by the Committee’s six major questions or thirty-three subsidiary questions; i.e., the fundamental issues of:
… Continue Reading· Whether assumptions underlying proposals for a “Clean Energy Standard” or similar proposals are valid, and
· Whether actions by governments to select, promote, or mandate particular energy technologies and sources are in the national and public interest.