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The U.S. Southeast: Renewable Energy Mandates Not (ratepayer blessing; industrial advantage)

By Robert Ross -- August 25, 2011

Seven Southeastern states have rejected renewable energy mandates and/or voluntary alternative energy quotas on electric companies: Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. (North Carolina is another story, requiring a 10% share for renewables and mandated efficiency savings by 2018.)

The good news for the seven states is not only that unnecessary costs have been avoided during the political boom of ‘green’ energy. The benefit is also that artificial bubble jobs are not on a death watch as they are in other states that now face ‘green’-energy retrenchment.

Bad Wind

William Yeatman, an energy policy analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, contends that Southeastern states do not have as much renewable energy potential as the rest of the country. “The Southeast has the lowest wind energy potential of all regions, and wind is the energy source that is used to achieve virtually all renewable electricity mandates in the U.S.”…