Opinions
Gov. Cuomo last month ordered state officials to study the health effects of hydraulic fracturing - and so continued to prevent drillers from exploiting the Marcellus Shale. But if he's truly interested in public health, the governor must also put a freeze on wind-energy projects in New York until their health impact can be gauged.
Also filed under [
Impact on People|
New York]
If Shumlin is indeed seeking the best interests for our state and not pandering to paid-for-political power, he can and should reflect upon industrial wind under the circumspection of the economic, ecological, and social damage caused by the broken promises from Yankee. There is a better, more thoughtful choice. A choice that begins with an immediate moratorium on industrial wind.
McGuinty resigns: The self-inflicted death of Dalton McGuinty's bold agenda
October 16, 2012 in The Star
October 16, 2012 in The Star
The centerpiece of the McGuinty agenda was his controversial green energy policy.
The idea here had three parts. First, electricity consumers would subsidize new forms of power generation, such as wind power, through their hydro bills. Coal would be phased out as a source of electricity generation and replaced by natural gas.
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
Canada]
So the risks to the SNP's current energy narrative are obvious. What if there's a public backlash against the cost of subsidising renewables as household bills continue to rise? What happens to the dream of Scotland exporting vast quantities of green electricity to England, if Paterson and Osborne win this battle? And who pays to make that trade viable, if the current UK subsidy system is scrapped?
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
UK]
In 2008 candidate Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs. He laid out a plan to invest $150 billion over 10 years that would advance a clean-energy economy built around biofuels, hybrid cars, low-emission coal plants, and renewable sources such as solar and wind. How many has he actually created?
What do these wind turbines represent?
Opportunism, for one. In return for investing in the wind project, GMP will receive $44 million in federal production tax credits over 10 years. Environmentalists pushed hard for those incentives, and you can't blame entrepreneurs for leaping at them.
Wind power does not represent progress, it's a step backwards.
To editorially support a wind farm off Block Island, costing millions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars in government subsidies and increased rates for electrical users for an unreliable, inefficient and ugly encumbrance on a natural treasure is ill informed and does no service to your readers or the people of Connecticut.
The heated debate over large-scale wind power development atop ridgelines is reason enough to take a second look at the process.
Public Service Commissioner Elizabeth Miller agrees the current system might need to be updated. Miller told the Free Press, "It's not that the process isn't working now, but it was designed for far fewer projects at a different scale."
The province's efforts to increase the use of wind power must be balanced against the equally valid goals of protecting Ontario's wildlife and natural environment. ...rigorous guidelines are needed to protect bats and birds.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
Canada]
The Bruce Peninsula, like many other parts of Ontario where large-scale industrial wind farms - with turbines numbering in the hundreds - have been built or proposed, has become a hot-bed of anti-wind turbine sentiment along with other parts of Grey-Bruce.
"Stop the Wind Turbines" signs are tacked up on fence posts and even highway signs in steadily growing numbers.
This situation comes down to who should control your property and neighborhood environment - residents or industry? The only way to take back the right to refuse risky, involuntary technologies is through statewide administrative code changes. Contact state lawmakers today to support a new code that gives you the right to reject these dubious installations.
This newspaper has argued that the PTC created jobs. That is wrong. It displaced jobs elsewhere, and it is a net destroyer of American jobs because it raised the price of energy for manufacturers. All the companies that must then pay higher electric bills have less money left over to hire employees and grow their enterprises, and consumers have less money to spend as they see fit.
There's more than a whiff of deja vu about the industry's promise of 8,000 jobs; didn't the builders dangle that carrot? How many jobs will be lost because of the effect of these eyesores on tourism?
Surely a major factor driving this multi-billion industry is the money available to it in subsidies and grants. But who will ultimately pay the price?
The vote to allow King's wind business was a very close one, with people most affected having no vote. There were no local jobs created with the exception of a single management position, and some electricity will be free as long as the project makes money.
Taxpayers shouldn't subsidize wind energy they don't want, don't use
September 26, 2012 in US News and World Report
September 26, 2012 in US News and World Report
The wind production tax credit was supposed to give wind a quick leg up, but after more than 20 years, wind is still asking for handouts from taxpayers. Wind is expensive because wind cannot be relied upon to produced electricity when people want it, unlike coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. It's about time that we end the tax credit and this multibillion giveaway to wind developers.
Also filed under [
Tax Breaks & Subsidies|
USA]
But 20 years of tax credits have failed to make wind power practical. The industry lives on subsidies.
As Ronald Bailey pointed out in reason.com, wind power generators collect a tax credit for every kilowatt-hour they produce whether utilities need the power or not.
Also filed under [
Tax Breaks & Subsidies|
USA]
Do none of these Mooney-like green zealots realise the idea of having one of these obscene blots [wind farms] on the landscape located close to you is about as attractive as living in the central reservation of your nearest motorway?
There is considerable evidence that shows these turbines are not just undesirable, they're positively dangerous.
Germany is being horribly caught out by precisely the same delusion about renewable energy that our own politicians have fallen for. Like all enthusiasts for "free, clean, renewable electricity", they overlook the fatal implications of the fact that wind speeds and sunlight constantly vary. They are taken in by the wind industry's trick of vastly exaggerating the usefulness of wind farms.
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
UK]
A wind "farm" creates an easement in gross over neighboring, non-participating property that impairs value. Thus, it is tantamount to an "inverse condemnation", or regulatory taking of private property rights.....an uncompensated taking.