WHO wouldn't like to hit Big Oil where it hurts - in the wallet? Proposition87, however, could end up costing the state and taxpayers for years to come. While promising to bring in close to a half-billion dollars annually from taxes on oil drilling in California, none of those dollars will go in the treasury. Not one penny will be used to pay down the state's debt, ensure education funding or provide more health insurance to working families. Likely, California's property taxes and corporate income taxes could be reduced if oil producers decide to pump less of the black gold from California fields to avoid the extraction tax. Also, Californians aren't likely to see any immediate benefits from the measure for many years. That's because proceeds from the tax would fuel a $4 billion program for alternative energy research and provide start-up capital for technology companies.

This initiative is really about wind power. The initiative counts other renewables, such as biomass, solar and tidal power, but other approaches are less advanced. Bizarrely, I-937 leaves out a biggie. Hydropower — that hallmark renewable of the Northwest — doesn't count, except for efficiencies made at qualifying utility dams since 1999. That's right: Hydropower doesn't count as renewable energy in the initiative.

While the Audubon Society supports wind power, the group understandingly is lobbying state and local governments to require regional environmental impact studies before permitting proposed wind energy projects. In addition, Audubon wants each state to do a statewide survey to identify potential wind farm sites and overlay those sites with migratory bird pathways and bird and bat habitats.

Yet, the only solid measure of the warming, the NASA satellite data, shows that over the 27 years that data has been available, warming has been at a negligible rate of 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. This level is engulfed by the statistical variation for reliability. Although there is an increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant nor does it pose health risks. Its effects, other things being equal, are to raise temperatures, but by how much is highly contentious.

Renewables may not help much with global warming, but the nation might still benefit from all the new jobs that would come from building and operating them. Recent work by professor Lloyd Dumas of the University of Texas at Dallas predicts that happy result. Dumas cites research showing that if 20 percent of future power plants are renewable, they will create two to three times more jobs than if they all burn fossil fuels. It's the same argument we hear from consultants hired by local governments to estimate the employment that a tax-financed subway or stadium would create. Both they and Dumas conveniently forget that the money to pay these newly employed workers is unavailable for spending by consumers or investment by businesses. Workers who used to produce those goods move to other jobs, possibly after a spell of unemployment.

May I draw attention to two relevant issues in the wind energy debate: 1) Radar and 2) Renewable Obligation Certificates.

In reality, this project should generate for its investors about $2.46 billion over 20 years through the sale of power and Texas renewable energy credits, which are paid by Texas ratepayers. An additional $333 million in federal production tax credits will be added to the revenue stream, along with an anticipated county and school tax abatement (tax forgiveness) generally demanded by all wind project developers of between $125 million and $265 million, depending on the project cost. With the project taking advantage of almost half a billion in tax abatements and credits (some directly out of school district funds and state school funds), lease royalties of only $34 million to $112 million to benefit the state education fund hardly add up to "a good deal." Simply put, Texas public school children, and all Texas residents, will be harmed from a revenue standpoint if the Superior project is built.

Beware, Washington voters — wind power is too good to be true. Approving the November ballot initiative [I-937] won't solve a thing. The current hype over wind power's credentials as a "clean and renewable" source of energy is belied by wind power's Achilles' heel — its intermittency. This fundamental flaw limits both wind energy's capacity value and its impact on emissions.

Why advocates want the return to the power of wind turning a blade is part environmental commitment and part attraction of the wind-farm industry to substantial federal subsidies. This is both the age of sail and the age of sale.

Good public policy promotes desirable social and economic change cost-effectively. Government programs, however well-intentioned, tied to bad ideas are bad policy. Such is the case with federal and state programs promoting industrial wind energy.

Intuitively, though, it feels like there's something wrong with this picture. When you stop and think about it, the whole idea of driving a car, paying money into a green kitty to offset the CO2 from burning the gas, and then calling the car trip carbon-neutral, is ludicrous.

Suppose you wanted to make a bundle in the electric energy business in the little state of Vermont. How would you go about it? The old-fashioned way would be to generate electricity at a lower cost than your competitors. But forget that – too demanding. Here’s another way: get the federal and state governments to rig the deal in your favor.

To begin with, UPC would have absolutely no interest in wind energy if they weren't in line to receive enormous tax subsidies to do it. Wind energy from Vermont ridgelines hasn't a possibility of being produced at competitive prices with even the most expensive of traditional energy sources. Without the subsidies, wind energy in Vermont is an economic joke.

Estimates for developing the Sheffield and Sutton project exceed $100 million. Up to two thirds of that is offset by federal subsidies, which we pay for. Over $60 million. A pretty good motivator.

Your carbon footprint? Carbon offset-buyer beware. It’s a gimmick designed to part you from your money without providing any measurable environmental benefit.

And despite Patt's irrelevant discourse on the difference between REC and cap-and-trade systems, the charge still stands that the primary driver of investment (and interest by utilities) in large-scale wind power is the potential profits from REC trading in a tight market.

...neither ScottishPower nor energy minister Allan Wilson bothered to mention that it will cost electricity users more than £700,000 a week (£38m per year) in subsidies (equivalent to £190 per "household" per year).

By paying too much, the Ontario government is encouraging inefficient power production in a way that will give renewable energy a black eye with consumers.

But most of the those who are pumping money into the alternative energy sector -- and investing heavily in ethanol, wind and solar power -- are just shrewd people, who understand that it's hard to go wrong when Uncle Sam is helping hedge your bets and guarantee a return on investment.

If wind energy really is the energy of the future, as the developers claim, it must prove itself in the market without government subsidies. This has not yet happened anywhere; the projections are all based on artificial models with hidden costs -- costs for you and me, the taxpayers and consumers.