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Economics of wind power won’t blow you over
Credit: Apr. 19, 2013 | www.indystar.com ~~
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The controversy in Wells County about the wisdom of building a new wind farm there, or anywhere else, for that matter, can easily be settled by asking one simple question: How many would be built were it not for federal, state and local subsidies? Tax abatements would be a separate issue.
A lot of numbers are batted about in projections on spending for construction and payments to farmers and taxes paid to local governments. But I don’t usually hear anyone talking about where the construction money will come from. It’s basic economics that if the wind farms are a viable project, private investment money will come flooding in and everybody will be happy. That’s free-market capitalism at work.
If, on the other hand, the answer is that they wouldn’t be built without federal money, then ask why, and where is the federal government getting the money? The ugly fact is the federal government doesn’t have any money to give anybody without first taking it from someone else. In this case, with the U.S. already is $17 trillion in debt, the feds are taking the money from your grandkids and great-grandkids.
An equally large issue is where the generated electricity goes when the wind is blowing. Fact is, since President Obama is openly and staunchly against every kind of fossil fuel, as a matter of law and rule, many electric utilities are being forced to buy this wind, and solar, electricity, often at higher prices than they can generate it themselves. They then have to re-sell it, and guess who pays the higher price?
It’s widely accepted now that we have enough of our own oil and gas to last perhaps 100 to 200 years, not even counting our big chunk of the world’s coal. So why are we spending money we don’t have on wind and solar energy that should stand on its own two feet?
Ken Selking
Decatur
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