“… the production tax credit will cost taxpayers $4.3 billion in 2021 and a cumulative $33.8 billion in the ten-year period from 2020 to 2029. After nearly 30 years, the wind industry’s reliance on the PTC has grown as has its cost to US taxpayers.”

The Production Tax Credit (PTC), first established under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, is a driving force for constructing otherwise uneconomic industrial wind turbines for electric generation. A per-kilowatt-hour credit, initially set at a lucrative 1.5¢, adjusted annually for inflation is 2.5¢ today.

The credit covers the first ten years of wind-turbine generation. The monetization occurs when wind developers sell the tax credits to federal tax-owing corporations, which offsets a significant percentage of the project’s capital costs.

Depending on actual power generation, and with very low marginal costs, wind energy can be sold at very low, and even negative, prices, ruining the economics of traditional power generation.…

Paul Gaynor, CEO of Longroad Energy, a utility-scale wind and solar developer, recently said, “Pre-pandemic, there were great dreams and aspirations for a record-setting year.” Indeed, the renewable industry was well on its way this year to a new record: the $9 billion subsidy mark. Mr. Gaynor’s dreams and those of the industry are a burden to the rest of us.

Without the subsidies, it is almost certain [that wind and solar] would be only a niche industry, supplying perhaps a percent or two of our power, rather than the 26% it is currently supplying in Texas.

For the first time last year, electricity produced from wind in Texas almost equaled the amount produced from coal. This year, it appears as if wind is going to blow coal away.

Last year, each source produced about 20% of the electricity used on the grid.…

“MasterResource.org is where the ‘grassroots’ anti-wind power movement that Bradley works tirelessly to promote merges with the fossil fuel industry’s astroturf campaign against renewable energy.” (Dave Anderson, Energy and Policy Institute, April 17, 2019)

Perhaps I am a tireless worker. But no, the pushback against industrial wind turbines is not from “astroturf” but from on-the-spot, victimized people. In this sense, MasterResource comes from the grassroots, not the tree tops.

Mr. Anderson’s writeup, “Koch-backed blog defends Trump’s false claim about windmills & cancer,” takes a look at this site with this background:

MasterResource.org is a project of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a group that together with its advocacy arm the American Energy Alliance has received millions of dollars from the Koch network, as well as money from the coal, oil and gas industries.

“Droz continues to be a man to watch…. Whatever the motive, Droz has built a far-reaching alliance to help his cause.”

– Sierra Club, “Clean Energy Under Siege: Following the Money Trail Behind the Attack on Renewable Energy” (2012).

In a 20-page want-to-be exposé, “Clean Energy Under Siege,” the Sierra Club has a section titled “John Droz: Anti-Wind Crusader.” Yes, it is six years later, but John Droz Jr. is still a man to watch!

The paper’s whole argument rests on what must be (but is not) debated: that Droz is prima facie wrong and must be getting well paid for his mischief. A PR hack, in other words.

But reading the very words of the critics with a different view–Droz is a spirited American speaking truth to wind power–defangs the argument entirely.…