Rep. Kristi Noem chirps without detail about her goals on the Trump Tax conference committee:
I’ll be coming to these negotiations with two goals in mind: (1) promote stronger families and (2) create a strong future for all Americans. I’ll be pushing to make sure folks get a break at those critical life milestones, like when you grow your family, buy a home, start a business, or pass that business down to your kids. I’ll also be pushing to improve things on a broader scale so wages rise and more jobs open up in our hometowns [Rep. Kristi Noem, mass e-mail, 2017.12.04].
More jobs? Noem and Trump are already killing 409 jobs in here in Aberdeen:
Molded Fiber Glass Companies (MFG) announced today the closure of MFG South Dakota, the company’s wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The plant broke ground in 2007 and has been dedicated to the production of wind turbine blades for a leading OEM in the wind energy business.
The closure comes as a result of changes in market conditions and proposed revisions to tax policies impacting the wind energy industry in the United States.
The company will remain open to fulfill existing wind blade orders through January 2018, with anticipated closure by February 15, 2018.
…At the time of announcement the company employed 409 teammates at the 325,000-square foot facility [Molded Fiber Glass, press release, in Aberdeen American News, 2017.12.06].
These job losses brought to you by Kristi Noem…
The House bill, released in early November, proposed cutting the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for renewables by a third, eliminating the Investment Tax Credit for solar production, and repealing the electric vehicle purchase credit.
The renewable industry depends on these credits to attract new investment and lower production costs. The American Wind Energy Association warned that the House bill would threaten 50,000 jobs and more than $50 billion in planned investment in the wind sector alone. (However, the bill does include a generous $15 billion subsidy for coal, oil, and gas companies.) [Sam Ross-Brown, “GOP Tax Plan Pulls the Plug on Renewable Energy,” The American Prospect, 2017.12.01]
…and Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds:
In addition to a Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) provision that could hurt tax equity investments, Republicans added a corporate tax provision back into the bill before it passed. The change was meant to bring in billions of dollars in revenue to balance the bill and win support from holdout GOP senators.
Gregory Jenner, a tax lawyer at Stoel Rives and former Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for Tax Policy, said it has serious — and likely inadvertent — consequences.
“It would pretty much blow up the tax equity market for wind,” he said [Emma Foehringer Merchant, “Senate Doubles Dow on Tax Provisions That Would Harm Renewable Energy,” GreenTechMedia, 2017.12.04].
Noem’s boss Donald Trump has blustered and wheezed about saving the coal industry, which at last count employed 76,000 Americans. Molded Fiber Glass is (soon was) part of a national wind industry that employs 102,500 Americans. Why are Trump, Noem, Thune, and Rounds handing subsidies to the dying coal industry when the wind industry employs more people and helps check pollution and climate change? When will Noem and Trump come barnstorming to Aberdeen to promise to bring our energy jobs back?
So, Noem supports a bill that kills renewable energy jobs in SD, but subsidizes the oil and gas industry, which is virtually nonexistent in SD. Wow, that shouldn’t play well to voters in 2018.
This is yet another example of how uncertainty regarding policy from the federal government causes paralysis in the national economy. Companies can’t make long term plans when Washington changes the rules of the game in the middle, as it has with wind energy tax credits. This is a problem for all wind energy manufacturers and project developers, not just with the company in Aberdeen.
Another example is happening right now in the individual healthcare market. Without knowing whether the individual mandate will be kept, and without knowing whether the federal government will pay insurance companies the subsidies they are expecting, companies have no choice but to drastically increase premiums.
Donald Trump is the chaos President, and the Republican Party is currently the chaos party. They have had 8 years under President Obama to come up with and put together a coherent alternative tax plan, but they waited until the past few months and they are cobbling things together with little forethought and little care for the consequences their rushed action is creating. That said, the Democratic Party should be putting together its own tax plan, but apparently Chuck and Nancy in their old age have decided to relax instead.
Rorschach: “. . . but apparently Chuck and Nancy in their old age have decided to relax instead.”
Is this the Democrats taking the words of Napolean to heart: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”? Or is it the Democrats taking a page from the GOP playbook – let the other side have a signature piece of legislation for your to run against in the next election (tax law is now the GOP’s ACA/albatross)?
O: Must we always just be given a reason to vote against someone rather than a reason to vote for someone? Is the new playbook in congress simply to take over by default when the other side proposes unpopular policy? Doing nothing may work for the Democratic Party politically, but it doesn’t do anything for the country.
I’d like to think we send people to congress to do something more than just get re-elected. If we settle for sending them there to do nothing but get re-elected then we deserve the dysfunction that we get.
We have seen for the last decade that NOen/Thune and now Rounds are only in it for the money. They have done nothing for our state so why would they do anything to support those wind jobs in Aberdeen or Clark or wherever? In the last 10 years, can anyone name one thing they have done for the state? One project that has been brought (without corruption and murder) to the state for economic purposes?
Krebs says she will be the same. Her goal in life is to present herself to the trump agenda and that is all. The governor says we are broke and proves it with his piss poor leadership day in and day out. The roypublican legislature is the perfect mouthpiece for corrupt government that Daugaard could ever hope for. NOem or Jackley in the governor chair would be more of the same failure with the same results.
Here are some more tidbits to what NOem/Thune/Rounds are so proud of.
“Some of the provisions could be easily gamed, tax lawyers say. Their plans to cut taxes on “pass-through” businesses in particular could open broad avenues for tax avoidance. […]
Some provisions are so vaguely written they leave experts scratching their heads, like a proposal to begin taxing the investment earnings of rich private universities’ endowments. The legislation H.R. 1 (115) doesn’t explain what’s considered an endowment, and some colleges have more than 1,000 accounts. […]
“The more you read, the more you go, ‘Holy crap, what’s this?'” said Greg Jenner, a former top tax official in George W. Bush’s Treasury Department. “We will be dealing with unintended consequences for months to come because the bill is moving too fast.””
This is what they have been doing. Natta, complete failure on such a grand scale that only a Russian could love. Well played roypublicans/Putin, well played.
409 jobs: until those people find new jobs, those layoffs increase Brown County’s unemployment rate from 2.6% to 4.5%.
Maybe they can all go north and help drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Thune and Rounds voted for in the Senate version of the Trump Tax.
Sadly, many of those workers have families.To add insult to injury, John, Mike and Kristi are also killing CHiP. To add insult to injury, Kristi keeps talking about strong families because of her tax bill. Either strong doesn’t mean what she thinks it means or she’s talking about the Walton, Trump, Koch or Kardashian families.
Rorschach, I agree. Will voters ever move politics to a positive direction focus?
One can either fight for the subsidies, or respond to the market.
Maybe the design of the wind turbine needs to change, perhaps by making them right-sized for a different market (home/farm/ranch/business/school use instead of for utility-scale wind farms). The other alternative would be to recycle old wind turbine blades into new ones (which General Electric, one of the drivers for the closure, is not really doing).
https://www.aberdeennews.com/news/mfg-announces-closure-of-aberdeen-manufacturing-plant/article_489bc574-da87-11e7-904f-87407b9b9499.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_jjperry_AAN
“The closure is the result of changes in the wind energy industry and the plans of General Electric, the plant’s sole client, she said. General Electric has acquired its own blade manufacturing plant, which has something to do with the Aberdeen closure, she said.”
Dr. McTaggart says: “One can either fight for the subsidies, or respond to the market.”
Well, that is a fine proposition in theory if the same tax bill wasn’t simultaneously handing out $15 billion in subsidies for coal, oil and gas companies. Not only is renewable energy losing subsidies (which admittedly should expire at some point), but the fossil fuel industry which has been around for 150 years is gaining subsidies. It’s pretty hard for a relatively newer industry to compete with a mature industry when the mature industry is receiving massive subsidies and not competing on a level playing field in the marketplace.
This is part of Trump’s war on renewable energy plain and simple. There is no thoughtful analysis of government policy and vision for future energy sources. This is politics. This is payback for coal country’s support of Trump.
Everything that Trump does is a political exercise. There is no thought of the greater good or the country. There is only attacks on political opponents and favors for political supporters.
PS This is the equivalent of Total War in a political sense by Trump operating under the Bannon playbook: Favoring red states over blue states with the SALT deduction. Increasing taxes for political opponents and cutting taxes for political allies. Instituting special tax deductions for private school tuition. Taxing the endowments of universities (that turn out left leaning students). Making political donations tax deductible through the conduit of churches. Unleashing political allies in the evangelical community who were previously constrained from direct political fights so that our churches will soon be as political as all other areas of society.
It is Total War by Trump in the political realm and renewable energy is just one casualty in Trump’s war.
Tuesday: Fly to Washington and receive talking points memo.
Wednesday: Vote as per talking points memo.
Thursday: Pack for flight home.
Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon: Hair appointment. Ride horse for photo op. Pack for flight to Washington.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Don’t worry too much about the Aberdeen job loss, Thune has promised 2,700 new jobs coming to South Dakota as a result of the GOP trickledown Tax Plan.
Cory, is it honest to say the tax plan, which has not been passed, is responsible for the closure of the FMG plant in Aberdeen?
Dr. McTaggart astutely articulates the true cause behind the closure – GE is vertically integrating to save costs.
The mayor is the one who linked it to the as yet un-passed tax bill; the company representative linked it to GE acquiring its own manufacturing plant.
Darin,
Regardless of the “war on wind”, there are things that can be done in response…that was my point.
Most utilities are planning wind energy and natural gas for their electricity, so I wouldn’t think the prospects would be too bad, but perhaps margins are pretty tight without the subsidies today.
With regard to politics, most of the states that are promoting wind are in the heartland, which traditionally are not Democratic. So I am surprised any anti-renewable efforts are not being waged against solar instead (which has a higher subsidy per kiloWatt-hour than wind does).
Dr. McTaggart, they will get around to trying to undermine solar in due time. The utilities that have planned or built wind and natural gas projects are trying to be proactive and stay ahead of the curve. They will curb their enthusiasm for renewable energy if it is clear by government policy and subsidies that fossil fuels are favored once again.
For now, wind and natural gas are relatively cheap to build and have an easier time getting approved. If those costs go up, then the enthusiasm will be curbed a bit.
The fossil fuels tend to have lower subsidies per kilowatt-hour, but since they generate more kilowatt-hours, the aggregate is a large number.
But really one should be worrying about overall life-cycle costs and the effects of carbon in the analysis, not just the upfront construction.
Dr. McTaggart writes: “But really one should be worrying about overall life-cycle costs and the effects of carbon in the analysis, not just the upfront construction.”
I could not agree more. Until recently, utilities dumped carbon in our atmosphere with little or no cost. In the short run, the effects of this carbon dumping were usually hard to see. In the long run, the effects build up and harm our planet’s delicate atmospheric balance. This is where government must step in on behalf of citizens and humanity to take account of the long run costs and make sure that utilities do so as well. Otherwise, utilities will too often make short-sighted decisions driven by profit.
Good point, Roger. Didn’t “they” also promise 30,000 === 10,000 ===500 jobs with Keystone XL? It kept changing but….
(I can never keep up with the false promises they make with these decisions)
No comments from Ms Noem about her “thoughts and prayers” or “sadness” about the Aberdeen plant closure. But she sure is patting herself on the back about protecting (I use that term loosely) the second amendment today. (and I think she was excited about her John Wayne bobblehead yesterday or something)
Will taxcuts for billionaires inspire billionaires to decide to buy more coal? Wiil energy company owners pocket their windfall or give the money generously to out of work miners?
“The November jobs reports are coming out and the results are Bigly remarkable. Manufacturing job growth in November was 40,000 new jobs. That’s the highest single month jobs growth in over 15 years. These manufacturing jobs are higher wage jobs. This is the blue-collar-billionaire economic outcome President Trump has been working toward within every economic proposal, policy and initiative.”
Winning!!!!
Yer jobs report also says only 190 000 jobs in November, down from 252,000 in October. Losing.
Still, Drumpf has done nothing , passed no major legislation to have any effect on the jobs markets. These jobs are just an extension of the Obama recovery. I reckon 8 straight years of growth. Bwahahahahahahahahaha!
Nice jobs report, how does that help the soon to be unemployed workers in Aberdeen?
Roger, had the business been built on a solid business model they could not have failed.
They should have gone to Trump for a solid business model, right OldSarg? I mean Trump would have structured it so that the banks and third party vendors got hung out to dry as he took what he could before declaring bankruptcy. Then he would have started a new business in China or Malaysia using the same business model and intellectual property, but using cheap labor and inferior materials. He would co-brand the product with an actual successful business and hope to ride their coattails to move some product. He would shelter the income through a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands and never repatriate the funds to the US. This is the Art of the Deal.
If Thune/Rounds/and NOem had any business savvy at all they would have cut a deal for South Dakota in all of this cut cut cut tax bill, you know, like infrastructure work. Our roads and bridges are falling apart, instead they prostituted themselves for a press release, what a sorry bunch of losers. They want us to be like Russians.
Wayne, the company cited market conditions and the tax changes as reasons for closing. They go together. We have no information that one or the other is the “true” cause, but it seems reasonable to say that closure would have been less likely or would not have happened if only one factor were in play.
I am pretty confident that the anti-wind provisions of the tax bill aren’t there because someone thought through the market forces. I am pretty confident that they are there because the fossil fuel lobby wrote it in there, and Thune/Rounds/Noem didn’t read the bill and think through the implications for their constituents here in Aberdeen.
I’m not making an argument for the merits of the subsidies for wind or fossil fuels (but if we’re going to subsidize any energy, why not the clean energy of the future instead of the dirty energy of the past?). But Noem, Thune, Rounds, and their President should be making the argument for proposing a tax bill has pushed MFG to close and layoff 409 people, and they aren’t, not on this specific harm.
And heck, Trump has never made an “argument” about why he should use his office to bring back coal jobs or why his favored fossil fuels are a superior source of energy. He just makes his sneering promises to angry coal workers. Why doesn’t Trump jet here and make a speech vowing to bring these jobs back?
Any company that depends upon using the tax payers dollars (direct subsidies) to be profitable is not a business.
…says OldSarg, thus advocating for a no vote on the Trump Tax, which, as I noted in the linked quote from The American Prospect in the original post, gives taxpayer dollars to fossil fuel companies to protect their profitability.
Like Trump, I love winning. Unlike Trump, facts and logic are on my side. Vote no on Trump Tax’s anti-capitalistic direct subsidies to companies that don’t deserve to survive!
Noem also knows nothing about the estate tax and her fairy tale about how the tax hurt her family is just that.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kristi-noem-estate-tax_us_5a28638de4b0b185e5392b78
Very good find John. Interesting quote that she does not want to talk about the fact that her mother probably got the farm with no tax implications whatsoever. Now that she wants to be governor of the state, perhaps it is time to reopen that debate on her trustworthiness. Why Ms. NOem, didn’t your mother get the full estate? Was there a loan on it that you paid the bank instead of the IRS? Sounds like NOem is confusing the bank with the IRS, happens all the time.
You wouldn’t expect a simpering wingnut pol to admit any mistakes, would you?
I wouldn’t, but I already figured out these wingnut intellectuals are intellectually and ethically challenged.
Let’s do trickle down economics on their yoooge congressional pay. Cut in in half and tell them they actually got a bigly raise.
OldSarg
2017-12-06 at 20:48
Roger, had the business been built on a solid business model they could not have failed.
OldWhatever’s idea of a solid business model was Wall Street under dumbass dubya. Too big to fail and wingnuts in congress will use taxpayer’s monies to bail out the crooks that bankrupted them.
Currently there is a cost associated with supporting wind energy when the wind does not blow, which is higher per kilowatt-hour than fossil fuels today. The question is really whether the long-term benefits are worth the upfront cost, which requires an honest life-cycle analysis of our options.
If you replaced a block of coal energy with half wind and half natural gas, you emit a quarter of the carbon dioxide you did before (1.00 vs. 0.25), and reduce many other emissions at the same time. Gasoline emits about 75% the carbon that coal does per unit of energy, so if you electrify transportation and replace gasoline energy with wind/gas, you emit 33% the original value (0.75 vs. the same 0.25 as above).
So if our energy consumption growth patterns were to remain flat, then that would be great. But efficiencies plateau, and desired growth may occur, so I don’t think that will stay flat forever. Eventually one will need energy storage and/or carbon capture to maintain carbon levels with this approach.
Sciency stuff is great, Doc, at least the little i can process, but, wingnuts like Drumpf and Congress are taking America in reverse so we will have to keep climbing the same mountains over and over again.
The majority of us should not have to put up with dirtier air and environments to satisfy a few coal company owners and wingnuts who do not believe in science.
Dang it, Robert, there you go again, thinking for more deeply, analytically, and practically than anyone voting on this tax bill has.
McTaggart for House?
Thanks for the warm thought on such a cold day ;^), but I’m happy providing service to my students here.
Let’s make Physics great again!
Or maybe “I’m with Einstein”.
Tesla has already got that no wind blowing thingy covered. They installed the coolest battery pack yet in South Australia, so that old argument is as stale as NOem’s big fib. Bring on the wind or not, Tesla has got that covered.
NPR reported just this morning that they have about pushed lithium tech about as far as it could go.
So the good news is that there is more work to do. Bring on the competitors to Tesla here in South Dakota, not South Australia.
Doc, why don’t you run for office? A smart renewable feller like yourself could do some good to a state that still thinks subsidized agriculture brings surplus revenue to the state coffers. No competitors would even bother to fly over this place without a welcome mat.
A vote for Doc is a vote that’s smart.
There ya go Doc, your first bumper sticker!
:^)
…and a Tesla in every pot.
Expand yer message in South Dakota- a Tesla full of pot.
I wish they made pot that works like the good stuff w/o having to inhale. My lungs aren’t any good and breathing is a difficulty at times. But, man, pot sure used to make me feel good.
How about an electric Honda Accord in every driveway instead…
What is this all about? It is in the house of reprobates tax cuts for the wealthy- A more obscure provision—the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT)—would be scrapped under the Senate bill. It’s a complicated provision, but it would subject multinational renewable developers to a new 100 percent tax, which would be “devastating” to the entire industry, according to a letter sent to Congress by the American Council on Renewable Energy and other clean energy groups. Renewables projects would no longer be able to take advantage of tax equity, and the tax equity market would “collapse,” which would lead to “a dramatic reduction in wind and solar energy investment and development.”
It may indeed change how wind and solar are developed if they don’t get paid when they don’t generate energy.
If energy storage works, then you can withhold energy when people don’t need it, and deliver it when wind/solar are not working. Then supply/demand work for wind/solar/storage.
If it doesn’t work, then you make the most of what you have…find a use for whatever is produced.
Ah, a coy candidate, not aspiring to high public office—some would say that’s the perfect candidate for public office. Come, Cincinnatus, lead us to peace!
A Tesla in every pot? No need to overpromise. I’ll settle for one Tesla factory in South Dakota. Aberdeen has a manufacturing facility available….
Cincinnatus…..bonus points for that one.
Old telephones used to run on a magnet system with two dry cell batteries. Worked great. A long and two shorts and you got the local bar. Which is kind of what you were thinking of having anyway. South Dakota could go back to the future as we also used 6 volt collectors under the wind charger for our lights. Just need to do it on a larger scale. The first order of business would be to elect a legislature that is honest and actually cares about the economy of South Dakota. Second would be elect Sutton to oversee a populist form of government. Third would be to send Tim to Washington.
Doc, you could be 4th on the list that would actually fit into my first order of business for the purpose of business. A business geometric theorem could be proven with instituting all of the above and even more so with number 4. Paging number 4… paging number 4..
Cincinnatus was the trading post owner in the old Daniel Boone tv series.if memory serves.
I lied. McKennon’s best-known live action role is that of the innkeeper, Cincinnatus, in the Daniel Boone TV series starring Fess Parker. Dallas McKennon had quite a career.
Pittsburgh 23
Cincinnatus 20
An-Busch ordered 40 electric semi trucks from Tesla. Clydesdales are getting worn out, I guess.
Each one of these semi orders will improve our air quality. We move forward in spite of the Roypublicans. Gotta love that.
Hey, come on their just sharing those jobs with Europe. What could be better for foreign relations. Happy Holidays to all of you in Aberdeen. Opps sorry Merry Christmas to you.
Busch could get Clydesdales to squat over Bud bottles. How does a semi, electric or otherwise, learn that little bottle filling trick?
Speaking of which, Mark, Trump appears to be putting more federal jobs in our foreign allies stockings:
And the Trump Tax may hasten offshoring. Thanks, Trump and Noem!
“Toyota plans to sell more than 10 electric cars by the early 2020s”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/toyota-plans-sell-more-10-164100307.html
I think they mean 10% of their fleet, not just 10 electric cars!!!
Or else somebody at Toyota is setting a low bar for those end-of-the-year bonuses….
In the overseas markets, here is a successful idea about renting http://www.eltis.org/discover/news/how-madrid-embracing-electric-car-sharing-spain
Why not just have driverless electric taxis instead?
Why not indeed? Oh, yeah, I know, the drivers in those old big cities are merciless. Bad enough with drivers.
Social media in action….
https://www.yahoo.com/news/toyota-plans-sell-more-10-164100307.html
They changed the title to “Toyota plans to offer more than 10 EV models by the early 2020s” from “Toyota plans to sell more than 10 electric cars by the early 2020s”.
Big oops.
I saw in the comment section that the readers kind of trolled them for their inaccurate headline. I think the first thing Toyota should do is get a better proofreader.
The big bottleneck to building enough electric cars will be providing enough battery storage. That technology is likely to be different from what is desired commercially for utility-scale storage for wind, solar, or hydro.
China already figured out battery storage, they can change them in 3 minutes. A Tesla in every garage, what about a Nio? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/17/chinas-nio-takes-on-tesla-with-a-car-half-the-price-of-model-x.html
China is gonna drag us into renewable energy whether we like it or not. While trump and NOem are playing marbles with rabbit turds, China is playing the long game.
Good news for American manufacturers of solar cells, not so much for the consumers of solar cells. The Trump Administration is applying a 30% tariff on imports.
“It’s estimated that the tariffs will raise the cost of major solar projects up to 10 percent pricier and home installations around 5 to 7 percent.”
Part of the success of solar has been the cheaper price of solar cells, which predominantly come from Chinese manufacturers.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/trump-apos-solar-tariffs-could-133100849.html
The US had a huge lead in solar cell technology in the mid-2000s. My daughter was working for the Energy Foundation then, and she told me the Chinese were poised to crush the US in solar and wind, because the Chinese government was putting a lot of effort into it, and the Republicans in the US were hamstringing these industries in order to favor coal and nuclear. The result of Republican mismanagement of the energy economy is that America lost out on being a leader in the industry.
Tariffs are not paid by China. The US economy pays for them. Far better to have subsidized solar manufacturers in 2005-2009 then lose hegemony over this industry and pay the costs now. Shortsightedness on the part of Republicans is costing us ten years later.
Too much focus on the solar cell technology by itself. I think the US needs to move toward the solar+storage combo…one-stop shopping, easy installation, that can satisfy any interconnect/permitting issues nationally, with recycling measures in place.
Make it easy for the consumer and show that it saves them money over 10 years.
5 workers were killed Tuesday at an oil/gas well in Oklahoma.
James Conca has a good article on Forbes about the mortality rates associated with each energy source.
Sources which generate particulate matter tend to have the higher rates (which include employer reports and epidemiological estimates). Nuclear is lower than either solar or wind per kilowatt-hour.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/01/25/natural-gas-and-the-new-deathprint-for-energy/
200 workers laid off in Iowa for wind. Not closing up shop however at that location.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/01/26/wind-blade-maker-siemens-lay-off-200-workers-iowa/1068473001
Most utilities are planning wind energy and natural gas for their electricity, so I wouldn’t think the prospects would be too bad, but perhaps margins are pretty tight without the subsidies today.
What is this all about? It is in the house of reprobates tax cuts for the wealthy- A more obscure provision—the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT)—would be scrapped under the Senate bill. It’s a complicated provision, but it would subject multinational renewable developers to a new 100 percent tax, which would be “devastating” to the entire industry, according to a letter sent to Congress by the American Council on Renewable Energy and other clean energy groups. Renewables projects would no longer be able to take advantage of tax equity, and the tax equity market would “collapse,” which would lead to “a dramatic reduction in wind and solar energy investment and development.”
I believe small electric coops are not as happy with electricity from wind as you seem to think.
Please research both sides of the wind issue. A good place to start is with an open mind and WindWatch.org.
I used to think that wind farms help fight climate change until I began researching them, prompted by a proposed wind farm in the lovely rural setting I retired to. As one who is shy about speaking up in public I needed to be sure that my stance is backed by evidence. I have spent al lot of time researching and looking at both sides.
I have also experienced first hand the deceit and unethical way wind developers obtain the easements needed to develope a wind farm. If these wind farms were truly efficient and for the common good I think I could overlook them and accept them. They are not for the common good they are for the good of a few.
Once Warren Buffet made his comment on wind farms not making sense, that sealed the deal. I don’t think a man of his business expertise enters into a new enterprise without weighing all the pros and cons. The pro is saving taxes for his stockholders and so the cons do not matter to him in this case.
I just think it is unfortunate that so many think only about money in their own and their shareholder’s pockets.
Funny that people who holler about the environmental impact and unethical practices of wind farms are silent about comparable harms from the oil industry.
Karen is right. Those poor people in Nebraska will just have to take their profits from solar and gamble them away to satisfy her opposition. http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/fremont-moves-forward-on-second-solar-farm-due-to-high/article_8a784341-4870-5a3b-b333-a17329ea5ecf.html
Poor devils in our sister state, just do not understand capitalism like Karen does. Karen digs coal!
Karen, environmental and ag groups in the late 1990s, led by Dakota Rural Action, had several bills that were meant to protect and benefit rural landowners, as wind energy developed. The utilities fought us, just as they stood in the way of development of wind because they were heavily invested in coal and not thinking of the future of the state. Republicans, of course, were simply in hock to the utilities. With all their monetary and political investment in coal, no one seemed interested in a rational build-out of the industry in SD. Coops in the Dakotas were also deep into coal, so they were far less interested than Minnesota or Iowa coops, for example, to invest in wind.
Cory,
We’ll see if they can make the turbine blades more recyclable on a commercial basis. Oops, you may need oil to make the better resin though!
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-recyclable-resin-turbines-sustainable.html
“It generally requires a great deal of time and energy to cure the type of resin that makes the 150-foot-wide fiberglass turbines strong and durable. When they finally wear out after 20 or 25 years, very little of the material can be recycled.”
Jerry,
More utilities are planning for more wind and natural gas altogether, with some doing solar. Solar may be easier to get approved though, and has a better possibility for recycling than wind does at present.
https://earth911.com/eco-tech/recycle-solar-panels/
“PV Cycle, a European solar panel recycling association, developed a mechanical and thermal treatment process last year that achieves a 96 percent recovery rate for silicon-based photovoltaic panels.”
In the not so distant past, cities had their own utility company that generated electricity. I think the time may be to reinvest in local energy like Fremont, Nebraska is doing. Invest in a cable company like the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee that would give us the speed needed with fiber optics and the power needed to bring that to us.