Posted on 08/31/2009 7:31:28 AM PDT by reaganaut1
After nearly a six-month lull, Wall Street is getting back into the business of financing new wind farms.
Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. have invested $100 million each to finance separate wind farms this month, taking advantage of a brand-new federal program that is paying substantial cash grants to help cover the cost of renewable energy investments.
Bankers say this is the beginning of an active pipeline of new wind-farm financing, as well as investment in large solar installations and geothermal facilities. Project developers and Wall Street appear to be viewing the federal cash grant program as such a good deal, industry experts say, it may grow much larger than its Washington creators expected.
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Under the program, the government will give a cash rebate for 30% of the cost of building a renewable-energy facility, awarded 60 days after an application is approved. Investors are also given valuable accelerated depreciation deductions, which help offset taxes.
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[U]nlike the popular cash-for-clunkers programs, there is no spending cap on the renewable energy grants, and the government has committed to spending as much as is needed to keep renewable-energy investments flowing.
Under an earlier renewable energy program, the government gave companies tax credits over 10 years, which were attractive as long as financial firms believed they would be generating taxable profits for years to come. When Wall Street imploded last year, profits turned to losses and appetite for these investments disappeared quickly. Some of the companies most active in these deals -- including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc. -- were hobbled or destroyed by the turmoil.
But the new cash grants are offering the potential for attractive returns. Several bankers interviewed said they expected deals to provide an annual return of anywhere from 9% to 15%.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Agree but a cash rebate for 30% of the cost of building a renewable-energy facility is a deal no banker could refuse the taxee (we) gets the shaft.
GOOD. Now one of these wind farms can be built off Cape Cod, as the major obstacle to that plan is now deceased....
Wind farms have to be one of the dumbest ideas on Earth!
Sooner or later the tree huggers and environmentalists will be blocking the building of wind farms because of some real or imagined environmental impact and the trial lawyers will be raking in millions suing the owners and manufacturers of windmills for causing some medical condition for people living near them.
Yet the Democrats and Media continue to portray the GOP as the party of Big Business.
They kill birds.
What about the birds!!!!
S.C.A.M.
Countless legislators in North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, etc,, are lining their banker's and their retirement portfolios and in the process; The countryside is being irreparably damaged by these obscene behemoths.
The new transmission lines alone that accompany this gross and inefficient power source are beyond description. You have to actually see one to understand what I am talking about.
There is one on South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii. It is in broken down disrepair and disconnected. Even in constant 20 knot trade winds and the highest elecric rates on the planet they do not work.
How is a electrical transmission line connecting a wind farm to the grid different than one connecting a nuclear or coal powered plant?
...I live in the mountains of NC....we fought off the wind farms last year; just barely....one thing about the proposed contracts....they tell the land owner they will pay all the costs of putting them up...NOTHING about the cost of dis-mantling if the mill is abandoned later (like when the government subsidy is over)...how’d you like to be stuck with an abandoned 380 foot white elephant in your back yard?
Yes the democrats have the same play book for years but it no longer works.
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