Saturday 5 May 2012

The U.S. wind power industry´s scare campaign will not succeed

Unreliable, costly and ineffective


The American wind power lobby is desperately continuing its scare campaign:


“The choice is clear: with policy certainty, we’ll grow to 100,000 jobs in just a few years,” AWEA CEO Denise Bode said in a statement. “Without it, 37,000 jobs will disappear, particularly in U.S. wind manufacturing. It’s up to Congress to act now and extend the PTC.”

Fortunately the scare tactics will not succeed in the Senate, where most Republican senators indeed know that the choice is clear: The "37,000 jobs" that "will disappear" are no real jobs, if they are dependent on tax credits. The senators also know that wind turbines are unreliable, costly and ineffective, compared with traditional ways of generating power. 

efforts by wind power proponents to extend the credit beyond its Dec. 31 expiration have stalled in the Senate, where the requirement of 60 votes to pass legislation has proved insurmountable. The credit is worth 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of power produced.

As everywhere else, the wind power industry in the U.S. is in for rough times, when subsidies and tax credits vanish. On the positive side; there is more than enough of good and dependable energy for future needs in the U.S. thanks to the shale gas and oil revolution. 


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