{"id":44249,"date":"2009-10-28T07:30:30","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T12:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.instituteforenergyresearch.org\/?p=4431"},"modified":"2009-10-28T07:30:30","modified_gmt":"2009-10-28T12:30:30","slug":"wind-lobby-huffs-and-puffs-but-can%e2%80%99t-blow-the-facts-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/44249","title":{"rendered":"Wind Lobby Huffs and Puffs, But Can\u2019t Blow the Facts Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We do not understand why IER <a href=\"http:\/\/www.awea.org\/blog\/index.php?mode=viewid&amp;post_id=231\">gets the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) so spun up<\/a>. Maybe it\u2019s because of our opposition to government subsidies. Maybe it\u2019s because we don\u2019t believe that government mandates forcing people to buy energy from expensive, inefficient sources is good for the economy. Or perhaps it is because of our belief that consumers, not Washington, should choose the sources of energy they think is best for them.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason, we would like to apologize to AWEA. Apparently we compelled them to use ad hominem attacks like \u201canti-clean energy\u201d to describe our organization and \u201cbogus\u201d to describe our research. We would have preferred that AWEA produce a substantive rebuttal to our recently released report, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.instituteforenergyresearch.org\/germany\/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf\">Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German Experience<\/a><em>.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>In an October 21<sup>st<\/sup> blog post, AWEA states \u201cIER\u2019s strategy clearly is to discredit wind energy in other countries.\u201d We do not have a strategy to discredit wind energy in other countries. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instituteforenergyresearch.org\/germany\/Germany_Quotes.pdf\">President Obama and top Administration officials<\/a> are telling us that America must follow Germany\u2019s example with respect to renewables or we will be left behind. Taking the President at his word, we sought to better understand Germany\u2019s experience by commissioning a study by the think tank Rheinisch-Westf\u00e4lisches Institut f\u00fcr Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI). The report found the following facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Financial aid to Germany\u2019s solar industry has now reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with <strong>per worker subsidies as high as $240,000<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2008, the price mark-up attributable to the government\u2019s support for \u201cgreen\u201d electricity was about <strong>2.2 cents US per kWh. <\/strong>For perspective, a 2.2 cent per kWh increase here in the US would amount to an average <strong>19.4 percent increase in consumer\u2019s electricity bills.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Between 2000 and 2010, the net cost of the German government support for solar was      <strong>$73.2 billion <\/strong>and an additional <strong>$28.1 billion for wind. Because the U.S. economy is five times larger that Germany\u2019s, a comparable      expenditure in the U.S. would amount to about <\/strong><em><strong>half a      trillion dollars.<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Green jobs      created by government actions <strong>disappear<\/strong> <strong>as soon      as government support is terminated, <\/strong>a lesson the German      government and the green companies it supports <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB125383541153239329.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\">are beginning to learn<\/a><em>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Government      aid for wind power is now three times the cost of conventional      electricity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AWEA lobbies Congress for government handouts and subsidies for wind energy production, so we understand why they would like to these facts to remain hidden. \u00a0As the report shows, Germany\u2019s experiment with promoting renewable energy has been expensive, and transplanting that experience to the United States will be expensive.<\/p>\n<p>Apples to oranges, AWEA argues, because Germany is not a good model for the United States.\u00a0 In their own words:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is that the United States is not considering a feed in tariff as a means to encourage wind development because it would not work. Instead, the US is considering a free-market based national Renewable Electricity Standard, and numerous studies have shown that an RES would decrease electricity prices.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>We hope AWEA informs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instituteforenergyresearch.org\/germany\/Germany_Quotes.pdf\">President Obama and other top Administration officials<\/a> that Germany\u2019s feed-in tariff is not a good model for the United States.<\/p>\n<p>We hope AWEA informs Representative Jay Inslee, who is promoting legislation to establish a federal feed-in tariff, that the United States is not considering a feed-in tariff, as it would probably come as a surprise to him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Pd_9Cfh_3kc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Pd_9Cfh_3kc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>In a Congressional hearing on September 24, 2009, Representative Inslee explained that Germany\u2019s system of promoting renewables through a feed-in tariff is a better way to go than the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juandemariana.org\/pdf\/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf\">Spanish experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We hope AWEA informs itself that Germany\u2019s feed-in tariff \u201cwould not work\u201d in the U.S., instead of describing it as \u201csimilar to a Renewable Electricity Standard\u201d which AWEA strongly supports. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.awea.org\/SMALLWIND\/TOOLBOX2\/incentives.html#tariffs\">Here\u2019s what AWEA\u2019s website says<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cA distributed generation or &#8220;feed-in&#8221; tariff ensures that locally owned, small-scale renewable energy systems become significant contributors to the local power supply. A feed-in tariff is similar to a Renewable Electricity Standard (see &#8220;Wind energy policy issues&#8221; www.awea.org\/faq\/wwt_policy.html) except that instead of establishing a set quantity of renewable electricity a utility must generate, it establishes a set price at which a utility purchases excess electricity from a renewable generator, such as a small wind system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In AWEA\u2019s blog post, they describe a national Renewable Electricity Standard as \u201ca free-market\u201d program. That is not accurate. In free markets, people are free to choose. A Renewable Electricity Standard forces people to buy wind, solar, and other government-approved energy sources. It is a mandate.\u00a0 Forcing someone to buy your product is not a free-market program by any definition.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to AWEA\u2019s assertion that a Renewable Electricity Standard would lower energy prices, common sense and real-world evidence suggest otherwise. Wind and other government-approved renewables are more expensive than other forms of energy. Common sense tells us that requiring people to buy expensive and inefficient renewable energy, through a renewable energy mandate, will only increase the cost of electricity. Currently, twenty-nine states have binding renewable electricity mandates and the electricity prices in those states are thirty-eight percent higher than in states that do not have binding renewable electricity mandates.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, AWEA states that they expect IER \u201cto take on other countries that have successfully integrated wind into their energy mix.\u201d That assumes, of course, that increased electricity prices and billions of dollars in subsidies is a sign of successful integration of wind into a country\u2019s electricity mix. Some would beg to differ, especially those who are footing the bill.<\/p>\n<p>The Administration tells us that U.S. energy policy should emulate countries like Spain, Denmark, and Germany. The facts show that the promotion of renewables in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juandemariana.org\/pdf\/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf\">Spain<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cepos.dk\/fileadmin\/user_upload\/Arkiv\/PDF\/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf\">Denmark<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instituteforenergyresearch.org\/germany\/Germany_Study_-_FINAL.pdf\">Germany<\/a> has been very expensive and has resulted in lower employment overall as an opportunity cost of the lavish subsidies. Of course, it is up to policymakers to ultimately decide whether the United States should follow a similar path, but no one should mislead Americans into thinking that doing so will come without a cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We do not understand why IER gets the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) so spun up. Maybe it\u2019s because of our opposition to government subsidies. Maybe it\u2019s because we don\u2019t believe that government mandates forcing people to buy energy from expensive, inefficient sources is good for the economy. Or perhaps it is because of our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}