Senator Chuck Grassley is leading bipartisan support for an extension of the production tax credit for wind energy. He’s making the case that as much energy as possible — both traditional and renewable — should be produced at home to create jobs and strengthen national security, and said, “There’s no reason to exacerbate America’s unemployment problem by letting this successful incentive lapse.”
Join the Global Wind Day Celebration in 4 easy steps!
First gather some simple materials: Pencil, Push Pin, Scissors, Markers (optional)
Step 1: Print out the Global Wind Day pinwheel stencil
Step 2: Follow directions to create pinwheel
Step 3: Take photo of yourself (and friends) with pinwheel
Step 4: Share photo on Global Wind Day Facebook Page
We were recently alerted to a lengthy attack on wind energy that was released by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in its “Energy and Environment Outlook.” There are many serious errors in the paper, including two major mistakes that completely bring down the central argument of the paper. In a surprising turn, once those errors are corrected, the data presented in the paper actually make a compelling case for why America should be increasing its use of renewable energy.
Study overestimates cost of wind energy by 500 percent
The central argument of the paper, that wind is not cost effective compared to fossil-fired generation, rests upon what we will charitably call a major math error. Author Benjamin Zycher drastically inflates the cost of wind energy by adding $368/MWh, or 36.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, to the cost of wind energy for a supposed need for “backup capacity,” increasing his calculated cost for wind energy by 250% to a remarkable $517/MWh (51.7 cents/kWh). As the citation for that added cost, Mr. Zycher references two Department of Energy (DOE) data tables. Unfortunately for him, neither the $368/MWh figure, nor any figure that would allow one to arrive at that number, appears anywhere in the tables he references.
Read full post at AWEA’s Into the Wind Blog
Source: awea.org
[This article originally appeared at Independent Australia, and is reprinted by permission. Emphasis added on two paragraphs concerning turbine sound.]
Independent Australia has made it to Federal Parliament, with Sandi Keane’sinvestigation into anti-windfarm astroturfers the Landscape Guardians and the Waubra Foundation being used as the basis of an exposé by John Murphy MP in the House of Representatives earlier this week.
WindTV: Michigan factories humming with wind power
Latest video segment highlights how industry is tapping state’s manufacturing know-how
The Daily Oklahoman Sunday joined a growing list of newspapers endorsing an extension of the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), noting that Oklahoma ranked fifth among the states last year in new wind generating capacity installed.
“Energy-related tax incentives are about as old as the use of electricity to light homes,” said the Oklahoman, adding, “Decades-old credits for fossil fuels were joined in 1992 by the PTC, which has stimulated investment in wind power — from the manufacturing of equipment to the construction and maintenance of the turbines that are now a common sight in western Oklahoma …
Read the full article on AWEA’s Into the Wind Blog
Windfall takes aim at clean, renewable wind energy with misinformation.
As one movie critic said: “The documentary isn’t big on hard data; instead, [Director Laura] Israel allows the majority of her interviewees to deliver anecdotes, speculation, anti-corporate conspiracy theories, and just a few statistics…the movie’s case relies more on emotional appeals and frightening images of giant machines than on real, objective number-crunching…the unbridled scare tactics cast too big a shadow over the agit-prop doc Israel ended up making.” (Noel Murray, AV Club, Feb. 2, 2012)
The following facts set the record straight on the issues that Windfall raises:
Health: An independent expert panel established by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Public Health gave wind a clean bill of health in January 2012, based on analyzing all available scientific studies. The agencies reported, “There is no evidence for a set of health effects from exposure to wind turbines that could be characterized as a ‘Wind Turbine Syndrome’…we conclude the weight of the evidence suggests no association between noise from wind turbines and measures of psychological distress or mental health problems.”
Get the full facts: http://bit.ly/Asysfy
Rural Nebraska town gets 35 percent business up-tick
Kimball is a small town at the western end of Nebraska and “very few people know we’re out here,” as Mayor James Schnell puts it. But a new resident has come to town—wind power—and it’s generating some real economic noise.
Wind power’s economic impact on Kimball is featured on the latest installment of WindTV, the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) recently launched vehicle to highlight how wind works for America.
Read more.
Source: awea.org
