There are many reason why wind projects can fall off the edge of the map. One is that people generally support these projects, until they are going to be build near where they live and/or can see them. Remember, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, along with John Kerry, fought hard against the Cape Wind Project. Many enviroweenies and Warmists support them in theory. In practice, only Somewhere Else. Another is money
(The Hill) Investors in wind-generated power nearly abandoned ship when Congress let the tax credits for wind projects expire, a new report says.
Installations of new U.S. wind projects fell 93 percent last year. A Navigant Research report says wind power installations had increased to a record high of 13,100 in 2012, according to the Houston Chronicle.
After deadlines passed in Congress and the $2 billion tax credit failed to boost investments, financiers pulled heir backing of projects.
Without the massive taxpayer backed funding, these projects make little economic sense.
Now, that “according” link leads to FuelFix (which is owned by the Houston Chronicle), not the Houston Chronicle, which leads to another FuelFix article by the AP
House Republicans complain the Obama administration is refusing to turn over documents related to enforcing environmental laws at wind farms where dozens of eagles and other protected birds have been killed.
Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington says the Fish and Wildlife Service has engaged in a “deliberate slow rolling of documents and answers†for nearly a year. Hastings is the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
I’m shocked, shocked! that anyone in the Obama Executive Branch would stonewall Congress. This never happens under Obama.
“Without the massive taxpayer backed funding, these projects make little economic sense.”
If the cost of fossil fuel derived energy included the expense ($trillions) necessary to mitigate global warming, it wouldn’t make economic sense, either. We subsidize fossil fuels with billions each year.
First, the IPCC report that is coming out is expected to state that the previous estimates of the cost of the earth warming is not nearly what the IPCC thought previously. What a shocker, eh? The IPCC got a prediction wrong.
According to Forbes, renewables are subsidized at the rate of over 25 times the rate of subsidies for fossil fuels.
But there is another thing that should be noted:
“Those fossil fuel subsidies described above, they’re not subsidies to the producers of fossil fuels, they’re subsidies to the consumers of them. Yes, certainly, there’s some leakage as the higher demand for fuels stimulated by the subsidies leads to higher prices for producers. But this is still conceptually different from the renewables subsidies which are expressly designed to go to the producers. Indeed, given the way that most of the green energy subsidies are constructed the producers are subsidised by directly over-charging the consumers.”
That means that despite what people like Jeffery say, the corporations that produce so called “renewable energy” (there is no such thing but it is a clever marketing strategy) get more benefits from subsidies while consumers get the benefits from subsidies of fossil feul companies.
Therefore, subsidies for fossil fuels help consumers while subsidies for “green energy” companies actually go into the pockets of the corporations. For people who say they hate corporations and support the average person, liberals don’t put their ideas into actions.
Of course, that is not a shock to anyone who actually can think and evaluate information for themselves.
Oh, and by the way Jeffery, Al Gore and you are still hypocrites in the AGW debate and your unwillingness of you, Gore and people of your ilk to change your lifestyle shows that your talk about AGW is bluster and that you don’t actually believe what you type.
Actions speak louder than words Jeffery.
Also from the Tim Worstall opinion piece in Forbes:
“Global fossil-fuel subsidies do exceed those for renewables in raw dollars—$523 billion to $88 billion, according to the International Energy Agency.”
and these are direct subsidies and do not begin to address the human and financial damages from global warming and the costs of mitigation.
To my eye, 88 is fewer than 523, and 88 is not 25 times greater than 523.
Fossil fuels are inanimate, and are not evil. Burning fossil fuels is not evil. Cars, buses, air-conditioners, planes, trains, furnaces and industry are not evil. But burning fossil fuels has added and continues to add CO2 to the atmosphere which is causing the Earth’s surface and oceans to warm. The warming is causing and will continue to cause changes in human civilization – some positive, but mostly negative.
These costs are assigned to fossil fuels, not because fuels are evil, but because burning fossil fuels have unattributed costs – economists call these “negative externalities”.