Powering Down the Wind Subsidy - from the Wall Street Journal:
The media are saying that the 113th Congress is on track to be "the least productive" on record—as if that's bad for the country. Let's hope gridlock lasts long enough to kill the crony capitalist special known as the wind production tax credit.
This subsidy that was supposed to be temporary is now 20 years old, providing a taxpayer gift to wind companies of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour. The handout would cost $18 billion over the next five years. The good news is that it is due to expire on December 31 unless Congress acts to extend it, so House Republicans can accomplish something for taxpayers by doing nothing.
With more than 60,000 megawatts of generation in the U.S. and utility-scale projects in 39 states, wind-power producers are no longer an "infant industry." The Department of Energy says that wind power made up 43% of all newly constructed generation in 2012, surpassing even natural gas.
Much of this production is due to the tax credit, which is so generous relative to the wholesale price of electricity that it is distorting energy investment. The handout brings the cost of wind production to nearly zero, which means wind producers are at times paying grid operators to take their wind electricity. This is discouraging investment in other forms of energy, especially in the natural-gas electric generation that is required to back up intermittent wind production—and to keep the lights on as the Obama Administration tries to kill coal-fired power ...
Read the entire article here.
