The AWEA Blog: Into the Wind


Fact check: Heritage errs in supporting job-killing tax hike

Posted: 19 Dec 2011 Tom Gray

The fossil-fuel-funded Heritage Foundation has a new blog post urging that wind power's federal tax incentive be allowed to expire. The following was posted as a comment:

Why is the Heritage Foundation, in these difficult economic times, standing staunchly in support of a job-killing targeted tax increase on an emerging, job-creating industry that is a recognized source of new American manufacturing jobs? Does that square with its other positions on taxes? Keeping taxes low on wind power makes sense: past experience tells us that when taxes are low, development increases; when taxes increase, development drops at least ...


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WindTV: Wind power, Wyoming ranching go together

Posted: 19 Dec 2011 Carl Levesque, AWEA Editor & Publications Manager

New revenue source helps rancher through cyclical nature of cattle business
  
Wind energy can be as dependable and resilient as a Wyoming cattle rancher. Frame by frame, the bare images tell it all: black-on-white shots of cattle grazing on the wind-whipped landscape, a pickup truck lumbering by wind turbines that are barely visible in spite of being just a few yards away, and a pair of dogs, lingering at the feet of a trio of family ranchers. Accompanying the insightful comments offered by rancher Shaun Sims, a howling Wyoming wind provides the soundtrack throughout the 90-second video.
 
The impact of wind power on Sims’s family ranch in Wyoming is the subject of the latest segment ...


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Fact check: Politico op-ed gets it wrong on wind costs

Posted: 19 Dec 2011 Jon Goldstein, AWEA Director of Public Affairs

The Washington, DC, publication Politico carried an opinion article today questioning the cost of wind power. The following was posted as a comment.

This story needs a price check. As far as wind power is concerned, prices are falling quicker than a blue light special on December 26th.

Years of technological innovations and an influx of American-based manufacturing have driven down the cost of wind energy. Including incentives, which all forms of energy get, wind is now close to cost-competitive with all other energy sources.

Two recent examples illustrate this point:

- Alabama Power Co. recently ...


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Blogger sees PTC extension as 'no-brainer'

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 Tom Gray

Guest blogger John Tarantino has a nice piece at Triple Pundit looking at the proposed extension of the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the recent Navigant Consulting report looking at the consequences of extending the wind incentive or allowing it to expire.

 

Tarantino summarizes the numbers reported by Navigant: with a four-year extension, 8,000 to 10,000 MW of new wind capacity (enough to power the equivalent of 2 million to 3 million homes) each year through 2016 and an increase in wind-supported jobs to 95,000; without an extension, a possible drop to 2,000 MW in ...


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Wind power's impact on birds: modest

Posted: 15 Dec 2011 Tom Gray

A bird conservation group recently said it is formally seeking stronger restrictions on wind power from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The effect of wind power on birds is a long-standing issue. Here is our perspective:

The wind power industry has modest impacts on birds compared to other forms of energy generation and should be viewed in context with vastly more significant sources of mortality such as buildings, communication towers, or vehicle collisions.  Further, we do more to study, monitor, and mitigate for the impacts we do have than any other sector.

Currently, we are looking forward to the Fish and Wildlife Service finalizing its wind turbine siting ...


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What's at stake: new manufacturing jobs

Posted: 14 Dec 2011 Denise Bode, AWEA CEO

Cross-posted from National Journal's Energy & Environment Expert Blog.

 

As a new study released yesterday by Navigant Consulting reveals, one of the things at stake in year-end legislative deliberations, although it would be included in a tax bill, rather than a spending bill, is new American manufacturing jobs in the wind power industry.

 

Navigant finds that with stable tax policy, the wind industry can create and save 54,000 American jobs in the next four years, including growing the wind manufacturing sector by one third to 46,000 American manufacturing jobs. This will keep the wind sector on track toward ...


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Fact check: Globalwarming.org: Heat, not light, on subsidies

Posted: 14 Dec 2011 Tom Gray

Over at the fossil-fuel-funded Globalwarming.org blog, David Bier has a new post slamming T. Boone Pickens and his bill to expand natural gas use and production. Wind power's key federal incentive, the Production Tax Credit (PTC), which is totally unrelated, gets a drive-by whack as well.

It's strange to see the enthusiasm for a job-killing, targeted tax increase on wind power (which is what allowing the PTC to expire would be) among so many groups that normally advocate for smaller government and reduced taxes. Be that as it may, the case for extending the PTC for wind is clear.

Wind energy is an American manufacturing success story, and extending the PTC will allow that success story ...


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Fact check: Loris stumbles on subsidies

Posted: 13 Dec 2011 Tom Gray

Nicolas Loris has a post at the Heritage Foundation blog criticizing wind power's federal tax incentive, the Production Tax Credit (PTC). His article is a fitting work product for a blog called The Foundry, inasmuch as the truth has been beaten, battered and twisted into the desired shape. Why is the Heritage Foundation advocating what is in essence a targeted, job-killing tax increase on an industry that has been growing and creating new American manufacturing jobs?  Good question.  Here are some of the facts that got tossed into the scrap heap along the way to a bright, shiny bundle of misinformation.

7 + 1.5 + 1.5 + 2, etc., etc., does not equal 20. It's true, the PTC was enacted in 1992 and next year, will have been in existence for most of 20 years. I ...


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Wind power brings new-found income to local businesses

Posted: 13 Dec 2011 Carl Levesque, AWEA Editor & Publications Manager

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. While several WindTV segments have focused on jobs and career opportunities created by wind power as well as the tax revenue it provides to local communities, this week’s video offers a look at the economic ripple effect of ...


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Small wind milestone: Bergey turbine first to obtain new AWEA Small Wind Turbine certification

Posted: 13 Dec 2011 Anyah Dembling, Assoc. Editor/Speechwriter

Bergey Windpower’s BWC Excel 10 recently became the first turbine to receive full certification under the “AWEA Small Wind Turbine Performance and Safety Standard,” a new initiative providing consumer-accessible, third-party verification to denote real-world performance, efficiency and safety of small wind turbines.

 

The Small Wind Certification Council (SWCC), an independent organization funded by several states and the U.S. Department of Energy, awarded the Excel 10 its certification and an AWEA Rated Annual Energy (RAE) of 13,800 kWh. More than 2,000 Bergey 10-kW machines have been sold to homes, farms and small businesses in more than 46 states ...


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