Free Republic

Hopes that a near-term extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for wind power would be included in legislation to extend the payroll tax cuts through the remainder of this year are nearly extinguished, as NAW has learned that congressional leaders have reached a tentative framework agreement on the payroll tax cut - but it does not contain a PTC extension. A House-Senate conference committee is expected to approve the deal, which will then go to the House and Senate as soon as today. Sources, who wished to remain anonymous, told NAW that both legislative bodies are expected to quickly...

...I want to believe in alt power, because sun and wind are free -- just as petroleum is free. It's only the extraction and distribution that cost...

Egypt currently has a total electricity capacity of about 23,500 megawatts, which the government hopes to increase to 58,000 megawatts by 2027. A prime potential element in increasing this electrical output? Renewables. One might think, given Egypt’s climate, solar? Wrong again – wind power, which currently contributes less than 1 percent to Egypt’s energy mix. In 2003 Egypt had its wind potential assessed and published a wind atlas, which found that with wind speeds of 7-10 meters per second, almost the entire nation was ideal for wind power installations, with the country’s best areas being along the Gulf of Suez...

For decades, electric companies have swung into emergency mode when demand soars on blistering hot days, appealing to households to use less power. But with the rise of wind energy, utilities in the Pacific Northwest are sometimes dealing with the opposite: moments when there is too much electricity for the grid to soak up. So in a novel pilot project, they have recruited consumers to draw in excess electricity when that happens, storing it in a basement water heater or a space heater outfitted by the utility. The effort is rooted in some brushes with danger. In June 2010, for...

BOSTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling that Cape Wind's turbines present no danger for local air traffic. The decision could further delay construction of the wind farm first proposed a decade ago. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FAA misread its own rules when assessing Cape Wind, which aims to be the nation's first offshore wind farm. The court said the FAA did not adequately determine whether Cape Wind's 130 turbines - each 440-feet tall - would pose a danger to pilots relying on sight...

Windmills to shut at night following demise of rare batKathy Mellott - The Tribune-Democrat October 17, 2011 LILLY — Night operation of the windmills in the North Allegheny Windpower Project has been halted following discovery of a dead Indiana bat under one of the turbines, an official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday. The finding marks only the second location where an Indiana bat has been found dead under a wind turbine. Two Indiana bats were found under turbines in the Mid-west, said Clint Riley, supervisor for Fish and Wildlife’s Pennsylvania field office. “While finding the dead...

You may have gotten wind of the seven North Dakota oil companies recently charged in federal court with the deaths of 28 migratory birds. The birds allegedly landed in oil waste pits in western North Dakota last spring; the maximum penalty for each charge under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is six months in prison and a $15,000 fine, the AP said. But did you know that wind-power companies are responsible for more than 400,000 bird deaths annually, and not one has faced a single charge? The Wall Street Journal knows it, opining yesterday that the prosecutions are “bird-brained,” especially...

Our ever-campaigning president heads off to a fundraiser held by a politically connected businessman whose company took a $100 million stimulus tax credit. Solyndra didn't stop pay-for-play the "Chicago Way."

Scandal: Our ever-campaigning president heads off to a fundraiser held by a politically connected businessman whose company took a $100 million stimulus tax credit. Solyndra didn't stop pay-for-play the "Chicago Way." Tone-deaf somehow does not seem adequate to describe President Obama's silent indifference to the Solyndra scandal of his making as he rushes off to another fundraiser, a $25,000 per person affair in Missouri on Oct. 4 organized by another beneficiary of our stimulus tax dollars. Tom Carnahan, of the Missouri Carnahans, arguably that state's most prominent political family, is listed on President Obama's campaign website as a host of...

These pointless monstrosities will continue to proliferate until the Government sees sense. Three separate news items on the same day last week reflected three different aspects of what is fast becoming a full-scale disaster bearing down on Britain. The first item was a picture in The Daily Telegraph showing two little children forlornly holding a banner reading “E.On Hands Off Winwick”. This concerned a battle to prevent a tiny Northamptonshire village from being dwarfed by seven 410-foot wind turbines, each higher than Salisbury Cathedral, to be built nearby by a giant German-owned electricity firm. The 40 residents, it was reported,...

General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market. The rationale: there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of – at least not yet. Given slower-than-expected industry growth, the offshore market may not mature as rapidly as many wind boosters once believed.

As California attempts to divorce itself from fossil-fueled electricity, it may be trading one environmental sin for another -- although you don't hear state officials admitting it. Wind power is the fastest growing component in the state's green energy portfolio, but wildlife advocates say the marriage has an unintended consequence: dead birds, including protected species of eagles, hawks and owls. "The cumulative impacts are huge," said Shawn Smallwood, one of the few recognized experts studying the impact of wind farms on migratory birds. "It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal,...

The Wind-Energy MythThe claims for this "green" source of energy wither in the Texas heat. Hot? Don’t count on wind energy to cool you down. That’s the lesson emerging from the stifling heat wave that’s hammering Texas. Over the past week or so, Texans have been consuming record-breaking quantities of electricity, and ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, has warned of rolling blackouts if customers don’t reduce their consumption.  Texas has 10,135 megawatts of installed wind-generation capacity. That’s nearly three times as much as any other state. But during three sweltering days last week, when the state set new records for...

Federal authorities are investigating the deaths of at least six golden eagles at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Pine Tree Wind Project in the Tehachapi Mountains, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. So far, no wind-energy company has been prosecuted by federal wildlife authorities in connection with the death of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. A prosecution in the Pine Tree case could cause some rethinking and redesigning of this booming alternative energy source. Facilities elsewhere also have been under scrutiny, according to a...

An investigative report in the L.A. Times exposes California’s solar and wind power economy, and for good reason. Key quotes include: > Accidents involving wind turbines alone have tripled in the last decade > Technicians have fallen hundreds of feet; others have been crushed by wayward parts or trapped in twisting machinery > Electrical explosions last year left a worker in Illinois with third-degree burns and two others in San Diego County with similar injuries > Workers could asphyxiate inside turbine enclosures or inhale harmful gases and vapors when buffing and resurfacing blades, the Department of Labor cautions > Wind...

Hard to believe we live in a world where $287,000 per stimulous job would look like a good deal. Thankfully, Obamanomics is full of surprises. A RedState post today highlights a Spain-based company Iberdrola is building windmills in New Hampshire for $100 million with a little help from the US taxpayer to the tune of $34 million. But wait there more…the “green jobs” created (or saved) for the construction of the windmills are going to go to the Spain-based Iberdrola Engineering Construction company. Is it to quixotic to expect that the jobs created by tax credits go to American workers?

Because wind does not blow all the time, wind power is an “intermittent” technology that needs other power as back-up to ensure that the lights stay on. Currently, wind capacity is backed up by existing fossil fuel capacity (natural gas or coal), but Britain has determined that it will need an additional 17 natural-gas powered plants to keep the lights on by 2020. The generators that will be used when the wind does not blow will cost UK consumers 10 billion pounds.[i] To cover the cost of this additional standby capacity, the utility companies are asking for capacity paymentsthat will...

Chancellor Merkel is pinning her hopes on an expansion of wind power Germany's dramatic rethink over nuclear power has thrown up new problems, as the consequences of a retreat from atomic technology emerge. Just after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in March, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a review of energy policy and ordered Germany's oldest reactors to be shut down immediately, and perhaps permanently. Only a few months earlier, she had decided to keep the reactors running past their original shutdown dates. But only now comes the hard bit. Power companies have warned of higher prices because of the shutdown; Germany...

Lawmakers in Oregon, Washington, Montana and California set the table by establishing aggressive mandates for renewable power that "ratchet higher" over the next 15 years. Oregon's large utilities are required "mandated" at rate payer expense" to serve 5 percent of their demand with "renewable" this year, increasing to 25 percent by 2025. California's standard is 33 percent by 2020, and Washington's is 15 percent by 2020.

Pursuing a new green energy economy in the United Kingdom has led to lost jobs and higher energy prices. President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and other political luminaries such as Arnold Schwarzenegger promise us a bright green future, but let’s look at how things have worked out in Europe, where green energy has been tested extensively. Does green energy lead to green jobs? This article is the second in a series that will look Europe’s experience. This time, we focus on the United Kingdom.Our Commonwealth cousins across the pond have also embraced the “green power...