Opinions
Subsidies for wind power blow over
Creating a welfare-dependent industry in the province may benefit the backers of these projects, but the potential cost to taxpayers is huge, and the outlook for an unsubsidized industry is grim. ...The wind power industry in Canada gets a federal government subsidy of $10 per megawatt hour.
But B.C. consumers can expect to dig deeper.
The cost of electricity from wind power is about $71 per megawatt hour. That compares to about $48 for natural gas and $25 for electricity produced from B.C.'s heritage hydro assets.
August 23, 2008
by Maureen Bader
in Burnaby Now
Creating electricity from wind that just happens to be blowing might seem like a cheap source of power, but it's not.
As we've already seen in Denmark, its high cost requires taxpayer handouts to develop and survive.
Subsidies in Denmark created a lot of wind power, but when the flow from the taxpayer subsidy tap ebbed, so did the industry.
In B.C., wind power will also be subsidized.
Creating a welfare-dependent industry in the province may benefit the backers of these projects, but the potential cost to taxpayers is huge, and the outlook for an unsubsidized industry is grim.
The Danish government decided to become... [continue via Web link]
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