The AWEA Blog: Into the Wind


Fact check: WSJ editorial laden with errors on wind

Posted: 2012-03-07 Tom Gray

Today's online edition of the Wall Street Journal carries an editorial criticizing the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), but with enough errors of fact to make an astute reader wonder whether the publication has any fact-checkers at all.  So, let's set the record straight on a few key blunders:

Item: The wind energy Production Tax Credit does not apply to solar power.  Shocking, I know, but there you have it: solar is solar, and wind is wind, and the two are not the same. The two technologies have not had the same incentives since at least the 1980s, if ever. And America's largest newspaper doesn't know this?  Clearly, the widely lamented hollowing-out of mainstream journalism has gone much farther and deeper than I had imagined.

Item: The PTC is 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced, not "2.2 percent" (of what?).  Another basic fact misstated.  Surely, opinions (and editorials) are worth more if they are based on facts?

Item: Legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.) does not end all energy subsidies.  It unfairly singles out wind power, the most promising source of new American manufacturing jobs, while protecting billions of dollars in incentives for other energy sources and all non-energy sectors. Honest reform of tax incentives must start with a level playing field.

Item: Wind power generated nearly 3 percent (2.9) of U.S. electricity in 2011, as much electricity as could be generated by burning 60 million tons of coal or 225 million barrels of oil--or enough to more than meet the total electricity needs of the state of Michigan.  After a decade of double-digit growth, wind power is starting to put up some real numbers, even in the country that is by far the world's largest energy user.  By any rational measure, U.S. wind power has become a serious energy source, and our investment in this clean, affordable, homegrown energy technology is paying off.


Item: Wind power remains ahead of schedule to provide 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030.  The estimate of 3.9 percent by 2035 in the editorial is an old one, envisioning no policy support.

In summary, there's an old maxim about the results of shoddy computer programming that applies here: GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).  Enough said.

 

Update 3/8/12, 10:23 a.m. Eastern

Some additional errors deserve mention (hat tip to Richard Caperton and Stephen Lacey at ThinkProgress):

Item: Natural gas prices are described in million BTUs (mmBTU) or thousand cubic feet (mcf), not "million cubic feet."  But hey, what's a minor error of three orders of magnitude (1,000x)?

Item: National and state renewable energy standards (which require utilities to obtain a specified minimum percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources) always include a "circuit-breaker" clause to protect consumers from high prices.  That's also true of the Clean Energy Standard (CES) recently introduced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).  To claim otherwise is indefensible.


2 responses

  1. Jon@AWEA March 7, 2012 03:08PM
    Nick, Sorry you feel that way. What makes something a "real" job? The 75,000 wind workers today are not "real"? What about the 700 wind manufacturing employees in Newton, Iowa, many of whom were laid off when the Maytag plant left town? The fact that they are now employed making a good salary producing blades for wind turbines isn't real? And the hundreds of former steelworkers in Pueblo, Colorado who today are back at work making wind turbines, I guess, in your opinion, their jobs aren't "real" either? The facts are that wind energy is creating one of America's fastest growing manufacturing sectors with tens of thousands of real, honest-to-goodness American jobs. What is sad is that a major business publication seems to be missing this story and getting some very basic facts wrong in the process.
  2. Nick Stanger March 7, 2012 11:54AM
    You folks are desperate. How about some substantive arguments instead of nit-picky little nothing stuff? Item 1. The article didn't claim the PTC is for solar, you are reading that into it - it is talking about renewables in general and wind in particular. Item 2. It's called a 'typo' and CLEARLY was intended to be say 2.2 cents (cents sign) not 2.2 percent (percent sign) given the context below it. Some typesetter made a mistake and you're just looking for stuff no matter how immaterial. Item 3 - it says 'starting with wind' and he 'has a bill to do so'. Again you're reading into it something that doesn't exist. Item 4 - wind may generate 2 - 3% but that doesn't mean we need it when it gets created or that it can even be used - unless purchased for an outrageous amount passed on to consumers because of bad legislation. You know that. Your entire industry depends on spreading your crap propaganda, junk science and sucking at the taxpayer teat. You can't even find anything substantive to argue about what's in the article, only these little immaterial typos and such. Won't be a sad day when all the little people who have all these make-believe jobs based on an unprofitable business model and tax subsidies lose them - especially those that work for the AWEA. You won't have the guts to print this. But I know you'll read it before you delete it, so good enough for me..

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