CFACT advisor Larry Bell argues that the time has come to end the so-called production tax credit for wind turbines that produce intermittent power, require major balancing of the grid, require constant maintenance, devastate bat and bird populations and create health problems for nearby residents, and increase the cost of energy to all.
CFACT Senior Policy Advisor Paul Drieseen outlines the various justifications for wind turbines and biofuels and shows the fallacies behind arguments in their favor. The simple truth is that renewable energy costs more, and that hurts the poor, who are doubly stung as their tax dollars are given as subsidies to wealthy speculators (like Warren Buffett, who chortled that the subsidies are the reason he makes money from wind).
Like “dangerous manmade climate change,” sustainability reflects poor understanding of basic energy, economic, resource extraction, and manufacturing principles – and a tendency to emphasize tautologies and theoretical models as an alternative to readily observable evidence in the Real World. It also involves well-intended but ill-informed people being led by ill-intended but well-informed activists who use the concept to gain greater government control over people’s lives, livelihoods, and living standards.
As world leaders attempt to implement the Paris Climate Agreement signed last year, crony capitalists are gathering, eager to take a bite out of the giant heap of cash allotted for the UN Green Climate Fund, and massive national grants and subsidies.
The amount of money flowing into European green energy from governments and the private sector collapsed from $132 billion in 2011 to $58 billion last year.
The past couple of weeks have highlighted the folly of the energy policies favored by left-leaning advocacy agencies that, rather than allowing consumers and markets to choose, require government mandates and subsidies. Three major, but very different, solar entities—none of which would exist without such political preference—are now facing their demise. Even with the benefit of tax credits, low-interest loans, and cash grants that state and federal governments have bestowed on them, the solar industry is struggling. We’ve seen Abengoa—which I’ve followed for years—file for bankruptcy. Ivanpah, the world’s biggest solar power tower project in the California desert, is threatened with [...]
The CPC budget features taxes on carbon dioxide (CO2), huge increases in green energy subsidies and new cash to enforce Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. It would add another $9.9 trillion to the national debt by 2026.
An energy company that received billions of dollars in green subsidies reported Monday it lost $6.4 billion this fiscal quarter, forcing the company to drop its renewable energy projects.
President Obama promised a million electric cars by the end of 2015, but got less than half that number, and many of those are being leased. Studies show that EVs, because they run on whatever is generating the local electricity, are often in effect more polluting than gasoline vehicles -- and a lot more expensive and less convenient. Without massive subsidies and arm twisting, there would likely be very little market at all for these overpriced, underperforming vehicles.
Solar power receives 326 times more subsidies than conventional energy sources.
The Spanish Wind Energy Association admitted Tuesday the country did not install any wind power last year after Spain effectively eliminated costly green energy subsidies in 2014.
Companies like Solar City need politicians to keep them afloat. The best solution would be to rid ourselves of politicians who play favorites with other people's money (like Andrew Cuomo), but barring that, we should cancel all subsidies that enable rich people to profit from policies that make energy more expensive for the poor -- via political means.
Australia's government has ordered its "Clean Energy Finance Corporation" to provide no future subsidies for wind farms.
With Louisiana looking to trim a budget deficit (partly caused by Obama energy policies), the state legislature is considering a dramatic cutback in subsidies for rooftop solar installations -- subsidies that in one documented case amounted to $33,000 of the cost of a $40,000 system. The customer was quite happy, noting that after a 5-year amortization for his $7,000 investment, his energy is now free. But who is amortizing the $33,000 that taxpayers paid for? If it took 5 years to amortize $7,000, then it must take nearly 30 years to amortize the true cost of the solar installation -- longer than the lifespan of the solar units.
Fueled by subsidies and mandates, the new rooftop solar-leasing market industry has engaged in “deceptive marketing strategies” to sucker unsuspecting homeowners into misleading zero-money-down teaser loan deals. Many customers are unaware they must include these units in their homeowners insurance policies, the units may stop working long before the 20- to 30-year lease expires (and they are liable for maintenance and replacement of defective parts), and the solar companies may place a lien on the entire property, not just the solar equipment, making it more difficult to transfer ownership via sale. There are numerous other pitfalls, including a serious fire hazard from defective units.