Congress deals major blow to wind power industry

[jpak]

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view/20120217congress_deals_major_blow_to_wind_power_industry/srvc=home&position=recent

CHICAGO - The wind industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit for wind production failed Thursday in Washington.

The move is expected to have major ramifications in states such as Illinois, where 13,892 megawatts of wind projects-enough to power 3.3 million homes per year-wait to be connected to the electric grid.

Many of those projects will be abandoned or significantly delayed without federal subsidies.

Illinois is home to more than 150 companies that support the wind industry. At least 67 of those companies make turbines or components for wind farms. And Chicago is the U.S. headquarters to more than a dozen major wind companies who wanted to take advantage of powerful midwestern winds and the fact wind power could be fed into the electric grid.

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[alfredo]

1. Follow the money

[truebrit71]

2. ...and yet we still subsidize Big Oil....are you fucking KIDDING me with this shit...???

[xtraxritical]

4. I feel the same way, burned up.

I think all the REPupliCONs have secret bank accounts how else could they pull shit like this? How is this going to create jobs? All these people they put out of work can't all be oil riggers. WTF?

[wordpix]

26. allow me to add my outrage, too, as BigOil once again wins the day

[sinkingfeeling]

14. Ditto!

[raouldukelives]

19. The major players are heavily invested in oil

Which of course we all know. As are the majority of 401k funds. As long as people keep funneling support to the major oil corporations through retirement savings we will see no light at the end of the tunnel.
The most important vote anyone can make these days is with the dollar bill. Every buck in the stock market is a vote to keep things going as they are.

[AlbertCat]

3. Way to create jobs!!!!

and get this country on the right track. Good work, Congress!





Now excuse me while I

[mopinko]

5. i predict this is not the last we hear about this.

this will not go down easily.

[CAPHAVOC]

13. In Hawaii

If you have wind turbines and solar you can sell power back to the electric company and get a check every month. But down there on South Point you have to get your water trucked in. But it is always sunny and windy there.

[Yo_Mama]

6. It won't make much a difference for this year

And in any case, when US net utility consumption has fallen 7.5% YoY, how much more capacity can be connected? I think more moderate weather has been a factor, but even the article points out that we are reaching a natural slowdown:

"We simply have not seen that strong demand for new power generation," said Daniel Shreve, director and partner of MAKE Consulting, a wind energy consultancy with an office in Chicago. "In the last four to five years, despite the fact that you haven’t seen tremendous load growth, new power generation is being added. Reserve margins have grown. We’re oversubscribed."

You can look at utility output on Industrial Production:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/

When you have declining consumption and rise conservation plus a very cheap source of supply (NG), it's hard to see wind doing great for several years to come. You can replace a lot of more expensive coal with the NG plants, which in any case are well designed for flexibility to integrate better with the newer supply sources.

[tnlurker]

11. There are plenty of coal fired generating plants that should be closed.

That is what the wind power should be for.

[saras]

12. Yep. We DESPERATELY NEED THE POWER, TO SHUT DOWN POLLUTING PLANTS

And if we weren't distorting the market by subsidizing pollution, we would be nearly done with the changeover.

Make polluters - not the public - pay ALL the medical costs, and see how quickly the shift happens.

[Beavker]

7. I suppose the Kochs will convert the Wind Farms

so that instead of turning a generator the tower will use wind to crank the oil drills...

USA! USA!

[nanabugg]

8. Bingo! Another talking point for Obama to use against any GOP opponent. nt

[madrchsod]

9. more illinois tea party kock brothers bullshit

there has been a well funded anti-wind power movement for in illinois. the fuckers will kill any solar projects too...

there`s going to be a lot of jobs lost across the country.

fucking tea baggers

[mopinko]

15. useful idiots

big coal owned legislators just told quinn who they couldn't hire to run the illinois epa. my alderman was going to be appointed, but quinn was told no way. because he is trying to shut down 2 coal fired power plants in the city.

[JDPriestly]

10. I would like to see subsidies for all energy reduced if not ended.

That would give Americans a better idea about what the energy we use really costs.

We could subsidize the low-income individuals when they buy their energy rather than the companies that produce it. In one way, the effect would be the same. But on the other hand, Americans would realize finally just how much various forms of energy cost us. Of course, I would want to see the subsidies that we provide to oil in the form of military expenditures in the Middle East figured into the cost of oil. Our military presence in the Middle East is a huge part of the cost of oil.

I think this would start Americans thinking about how to conserve on energy use. That is what we need to do.

[former9thward]

16. Best idea on this thread.

[Johnson20]

21. Me to!! And the taxes used to pay the subsidies returned to those of us that pay taxes. n/t

[harun]

24. LOL, what planet you from?

[wordpix]

28. while we're at it, let the polluting industries pay to clean up their messes 100%

If they need the Coast Guard, police, state DEP enforcers and clean up crews, OSHA inspectors, etc., they should pay for their services, too.

Let's level the playing field for once.

[Neue Regel]

38. Exactly

A business model that requires government subsidies to be profitable is an unsustainable business model.

[XemaSab]

17. Care to stick a cross post to teh e/e?

[jpak]

18. Will do

[stockholmer]

20. vote: 237-197 with 21 Democrats joining the GOP majority, Navigant expects 37,000 jobs lost

http://www.awea.org/newsroom/pressreleases/Navigant_study.cfm

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll071.xml#Y

Democrats who voted with majority, killing the wind power tax credit:

Altmire
Barrow
Bishop (GA)
Boren
Boswell
Cooper
Costa
Critz
Cuellar
Donnelly (IN)
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Hinojosa
Hochul
Kissell
Matheson
McIntyre
Owens
Richmond
Peterson
Ross (AR)

Democrats Not Voting Aye or No:

Cleaver
Payne
Rangel
Sanchez, Loretta
Shuler

[wordpix]

27. Rangel---he's still there?

What a bunch of bought and sold D pricks

[valerief]

22. Mustn't hurt oil or give people green jobs. nt

[fascisthunter]

23. Yay for Fossil Fuels, Nukes and Global Warming

yeah, our government is run by sane people... not!

[GliderGuider]

25. I've been saying for years that wind and solar won't happen

My reasons for saying this are:

* The build-out curve required to replace any significant amount of coal/natural gas/nuclear electricity is long and steep, and traditional sources have a major head start.

* The intermittancy issue of both sources needs to be dealt with, through a combination of storage and grid re-engineering. That will be technically complex and expensive.

* The capital cost is high (low fuel cost but high capex). Although it is declining, it's still high enough to give traditional sources the advantage.

* Entrenched interests will throw up legislative and social roadblocks (purchased politicians and manufactured NIMBYism) at every opportunity.

* The global economic crisis is making new capital investments in replacement power sources less attractive, especially where the existing plants and grid infrastructure are in good condition and are turning a profit.

Empire (aka Global Industrial Civilization) simply doesn't care about the welfare of the planet, doesn't care about any life except for human life, and doesn't care very much about most humans either.

What Empire cares about is Power: the creation of ever greater political and economic power, and its concentration in an ever smaller Power Elite. And the Empire's current global energy system is ideally suited to its purposes. Why should it change? The only thing that could force a change is a problem with one of its current darling energy sources (hello Peak Oil?) or maybe a global revolution. I don't hold out much hope for global revolution, unless fossil-fuel-induced climate change cuts into the world's food supply.

I haven't changed the position I staked out over 6 years ago. Wind and solar advocates, as earnest and optimistic as they may be, are doomed to disappointment as their dreams crash headlong into reality.

[jpak]

29. Repubilcons have repeatedly pulled the plug on wind and solar since 1980

Sorry but the build out for wind and solar is faster cheaper better than nuclear.

Growth rates of both have been exponential world-wide and will soon dominate the energy market - if government policies are not adverse.

Intermittancy has not been a serious issue even in markets where wind/solar comprise double-digit percentages of grid capacity - and power output from wind and solar is complimentary.

The GOP just hates renewables - always have and always will.

yup

[GliderGuider]

30. Sure. Reality bites. Dems can be/have been purchased by the Power Elite too, though.

Gas is cheaper than wind. So is coal. Nuclear isn't, but it's not the planetary threat. That honour belongs to carbon. And as long as coal and NG stay cheap they will be the power of choice for the Empire.

We need to get much higher than low double digits in renewables if we want to defeat carbon. At 85-90% wind and solar (which is where we need to be) intermittency becomes a significant deal.

It ain't just the Republicans.
We're all part of the Empire.

But keep the dream alive - without it we're all done for sure.

[jpak]

36. Wind is cheaper than imported coal in India, PV is cheaper than diesel-generated power there too.

Wind displaces more expensive gas-fired and coal-fired power in the US and Europe.

PV is at grid parity in many markets around the world.

No industry can survive if Congress whiplashes taxes and regulations.

The GOP are job killers plain and simple.

yup

[annabanana]

31. stupid, short sighted, venal, sociopathic

and morally bankrupt

[Flatulo]

32. The worst thing about this, even worse than the loss of generating capacity,

is that the Chinese are moving aggressively to dominate both the wind and solar sectors. And of course, they are doing this with massive subsidies from the Chinese goverment. Look at what Jai Wai did to Evergreen Solar.

When the time comes that we do need to make large-scale purchases of turbines, we'll be buying them from the Chinese.

[glinda]

33. I am angry. Real angry.

Idiots. Greedy asses.

[greenman3610]

34. I talked to a staffer on the hill

He made me believe that there will be other opportunities to bring up this legislation.
there is a lot of support on both sides for the wind industry

[Nihil]

37. Yeah yeah yeah ...

The actual fact is as reported upthread:
>> 237-197 with 21 Democrats joining the GOP majority


> He made me believe that there will be other opportunities to bring up
> this legislation. there is a lot of support on both sides for the wind industry

Pardon me for my scepticism.

The whores in Congress and the Senate give no support for the things
that don't bribe them enough ...

There's always going to be a certain price before a prostitute will suck
the client's dick and the fossil fuel industry can guarantee that the price
will remain too high for the newcomers to match ...

[GliderGuider]

39. What do you think it will take to break that pattern?

Will we have to wait until CO2 levels are at 500 ppm, crops across the planet are shriveling in the fields and people are starving in Europe instead of just in Africa?

Humans are not a rational species, we are a rationalizing species - we will find a thousand ways to explain away the problem that's in front of our noses, just as we have been doing. I've been digging into root causes for almost a decade now, and I still haven't found a door out of this box of predicament. In fact it's the other way around - the more I understand about what's going on and why, the more convinced I become that only a global rupture of some kind (there are a couple of dozen realistic candidates) will trigger a wholesale shift in direction.

As long as most people can convince themselves that today looks pretty much like yesterday, tomorrow will look pretty much like today, and things today are just fine thank you, there is no incentive for change.

IMO the best thing that those of us who have figured it out can do is to equip ourselves, our families and our immediate communities for a more localized existence based on the resources we have immediately to hand.

[Nihil]

40. I think you are right. (n/t)

[lonestarnot]

35. Fucking A.

[nanabugg]

41. Well folks, we need to stop complaining and do we can to help elect a different

Congress. State-wide and nationally.