Stop Wringing Our Hands

It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressmen.

Grants for wind energy started in 1992.  In a classic example of government intervention in a market and the unintended consequences, see www.renewablesbiz.com.  The wind industry and other renewable technology players are pleading for continuance of tax incentives for the technology.

The article summarizes letters to the editor including this comment re:  California’s leading renewable energy role:

"The article is another example of renewable ideology (renewables at any price) over sound and balanced energy/economic/environmental policy. The state has bled red, white, and blue jobs in the name of green jobs. Most heavy manufacturing has left the state. The semiconductor fabrication and Information Technology sectors, energy intensive, are fleeing as well. The state depends on energy and refined fuels from outside its borders. It is last in credit rating and facing a $20 billion deficit. This is leading?"

Why do we continue to subsidize technology that is of limited benefit?

"I seem to recall that the original rationale for the wind energy production tax credit in 1992 was to allow time in the market for turbine manufacturers to make their products more economically viable, i.e., improve the technology thus reducing the cost of producing wind energy, making wind more economically competitive with other existing generating technologies," he wrote. "Over the years the technology improvement focus diminished as the industry went for larger production volumes and new `unproven' technology became impossible to project finance at a scale of interest to developers and the financial community. A couple of years ago the focus morphed into job creation and now job retention as the tax credit morphed into a cash grant."

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. 

George Bernard Shaw