Big subsidies for wind projects are 'FIT' for retirement

Larry Beahan of the Sierra Club Niagara Group declared in the Aug. 7 Another Voice article that FIT - feed-in-tariff, aka: another tax - should be mandated to guarantee rates for "green" energy for the next 20 years.

Apparently he is unaware that industrial wind energy already has been feeding at the trough of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare for over 20 years now in the form of the production tax credit, and 1603 direct cash grant program.

The reality is, subsidies for industrial wind cost far more than any other source, as spelled out in the recent Master Resource article, "New York State's Money - Road to Nowhere:"

"On a per kWh basis, wind receives 80 times the public subsidies received by fossil fuels, but produces no reliable electricity capacity and very few American jobs. In fact, for every green job that wind supposedly creates, it destroys two to four regular jobs - in large part due to skyrocketing electricity rates."

So what do we get for those exorbitant costs? Industrial wind provides virtually no capacity value/firm capacity (specified amounts of power on demand), and therefore cannot provide modern power - period. Despite having over 140,000 industrial wind turbines installed worldwide, CO2 emissions have not been significantly reduced - anywhere.

We may as well mandate that we get 25 percent of our Navy from sailboats, 25 percent of our air transport from gliders, or 25 percent of our vehicle transport from horse and buggy.

Another reality - Germany is now building 17 new coal-fired and 29 new gas-fired power plants to replace their emissions-free nuclear plants.

Environmentalist Jon Boone has done an excellent job of defining the problems with the Sierra Club's blind support of industrial wind in his report: "The Sierra Club: How support for industrial wind technology subverts its history, betrays its mission, and erodes commitment to the scientific method."

Obviously, the admittedly "necessarily skyrocketing" electricity prices associated with this administration's "green" agenda, will further drive business out of New York (and the U.S.), and hurt our poor the most.

You would think that folks would understand that our $16 trillion dollar indebted nation can no longer afford to throw good money after bad pursuing the wishful thinking of "green" enthusiasts.

Our resources would be much better spent on energy efficiency, and research on technologies of the future - not antiquated corporate money-grubbing schemes like wind power.

I think we can all agree - The time for science-based energy policies is now.

Mary Kay Barton, a retired health educator and small business owner in New York State, has worked on water quality organizations over the past decade.