Texas Wind Boom Threatened by Expiring Tax Credit
When Brad Sawyer graduates next spring from Texas State Technical College in Sweetwater, he hopes to get a job as a wind turbine technician, working on the towering three-bladed machines that dot the West Texas countryside.
“I think that the jobs will be there,” said Sawyer, who is in the wind energy technology associate’s degree program. However, he added, if the federal government changes its policy on wind power, things could get “pretty tight.”
Sawyer and wind power companies are closely watching developments in Washington, where a tax credit benefiting wind farms is due to expire at the end ...
Comments (9)
Brian Ortego via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If the subsides and credits end, true innovation can occur to improve the technology of wind and solar electrical generation in order for it to become a viable industry.
cal morton
The PUC is not representing the public, as appointees of the governor, their opinions are NOTHING more than the slanted and politically motivated CURRENT views of the GOP.... and not the citizens of Texas. Ignorance is obvious.
Cal Morton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Brain Ortego has NO idea of which he speaks... I mean really, none.
John Ballard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Brian I guess we're still waiting for the petroleum industry to reach that "true innovation" stage after years, even decades of tax breaks, subsidies and credits. Do you think they might become a "viable industry" in our lifetime? (No reply necessary...it's just a rhetorical question...)
Marnie Tunay via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The reality is that the world needs to go green... Mitt Romney is clearly a throwback. Good luck, down there.
DavidSiegel
I assume that Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, et al mean it when they say they want to remove energy subsidies that distort the market. Like the depletion allowance, the high-cost gas exemption, and even the Foreign Tax Credit, which supports the overseas production of oil.
Hope someone asks about this in the Cruz-Sadler debate.
Brian Ortego via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Cal, Really? To date, it has been Moore's Law that has inspired innovation in computing hardware, not subsidies and tax credits. I have an all of the above approach, irregardless if it's subsidies and credits for petroleum, corn, or mohair. Politicians may have had some legitimate goals for stabilizing commodities, but they're usually for the benefit of only a few. Get rid of the self-serving maggot politicians and the subsidies!
Conservation and going green is good, but the reality presents some challenges with the available technology and resources. Cobalt and Neodymium are needed in vast amounts for the next generation of batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, but it is a scarce resource and only available in politically unstable countries. Do you invade to promote conservation? If EV become common, what about the strain on the power grid during peak times? What do you do? The price of oil and fuels alone will drive the advanced technology required!
If the current technology is not market viable, credit and subsidies will only drive Solyndra type start-ups that only seek profitability, and not advancement of the technology.
It's a sad fact, but the world will remain a hydrocarbon economy because we are all capitalistic at heart. Look at China, sacrificing the health and safety of their people and the world's environment to sell photo voltaics and batteries to bleeding heart liberals across the world.
Glenn Schleede
Romney and Obama on Tax Breaks for Iowa and other Wind Energy States.
On Sunday, August 12, 2012, Catharine Ho of the Washington Post pointed out that President Obama, while in Iowa, attacked Mitt Romney because the Romney campaign has announced opposition to the extension of the 20-year old tax breaks for “wind energy,” suggesting that this will cost Romney critically needed votes from the voters in wind-rich Iowa.
It would be refreshing if Mitt Romney DOES NOT pander to the people of Iowa on tax breaks for wind energy. He should stand fast against wind tax breaks despite the views of Iowa Republic Governor Branstead, Senator Grassley, Congressmen King and Latham who, for far too long, have been insisting that citizens, taxpayers and consumers outside Iowa support Iowa's parochial energy policies.
The fact is that electricity from wind is very high in cost and very low in real value! If Iowans want to use expensive wind energy, they should pay the full cost and not expect people in other states to bear the cost of their expensive energy decisions.
The same principal should apply in California, Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and other states where state governments have created artificial, high price markets where producers of high cost electricity from wind can sell their product, specifically by forcing electric utilities to include that high cost electricity in their mix of energy sources. If political leaders in those states insist on high cost electricity, the citizens in those states should pay for their leaders’ decisions – not expect the rest of us to support those decisions by “picking up the tab” via federal tax breaks and subsidies
Of course, the faulty decisions begin with the wind industry and other wind energy advocates who have lobbied for the federal tax breaks. For more than a decade leaders of these groups have greatly overstated the benefits of wind energy and understated or ignored wind energy’s inherently high cost, low value, and adverse environmental, electric system reliability, scenic and property value impacts. They have also exaggerated the job and economic benefits of wind energy. They have misled the public, media and government officials.
In the past, political leaders and the media might have been excused for being misled by the wind energy advocates. However, for at least five years, the above facts about wind energy have been clear. There is no longer any justification for continuing the 20 year old tax breaks for wind energy nor is there any good evidence that wind energy will ever become commercially viable (i.e., without tax breaks and subsidies).
The damage from the past 20 years of tax breaks and subsidies for wind energy have been significant, including:
a. The transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers and electric customers to the pockets of heavily subsidized "wind farm" owners and developers and wind turbine suppliers (many from foreign countries).
b. The misdirection of billions of capital investment dollars to energy projects -- wind turbines -- that produce little electricity, which electricity is intermittent, volatile, unreliable and low in value because it is produced primarily at night in colder months, not on hot weekday afternoons in July and August when electricity is most in demand.
c. Its contribution to the growing national problem whereby once great companies have found it more profitable and less risky to focus a large share of their human resources on "mining" Washington and state capitals for tax breaks and subsidies rather than engaging those resources in innovative and productive endeavors in the private sector that would make a far greater contribution to economic and job growth.
The fact that faulty federal wind energy policies can be traced back to the Republican administration of George H. W. Bush should not cause Mr. Romney to hesitate about maintaining a strong stance against special interest tax breaks for wind energy.
Mr. Romney needs to stand against special interest tax breaks of all kinds, even though he would be at odds with six Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee (Grassley, Hatch, Thune, Roberts, Crapo and Snowe) who recently joined the Committee’s 13 Democrats in voting to extend and expand Production Tax Credits (PTC) and Investment Tax Credits (ITC) for wind energy. He should not accept Senator Hatch’s excuse that “ The Finance Committee’s bill “…isn’t perfect, but it is an essential step towards the ultimate goal of comprehensive tax reform.”
He needs to send the same message to wavering Republicans in the House of Representatives. It is long past the time when members of Congress should be excused for putting well financed special interests ahead of the interests of ordinary citizens, taxpayers and electric customers who are bearing the costs AND our children and grandchildren who will bear the burden of the debt that those members are blissfully building up!
Glenn R. Schleede
Ashburn, VA
Wally Parnel via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Dirty Oil in the saddle again? Love the commenet that wind farms are hurting Big Oils profits. Since when did a wind farm, profit, $61 Billion in a quarter. No competition in energy, is corrupt energy policy. Big oil gets tax breaks of unbelievable size. Do away with the oil substicies and see a clean playing field, then we can compare apples to apples.