NYTimes' Tierney on Kennedys, wind farm subs

The NYTimes' John Tierney implies that the Kennedys are Nimbyesque when they oppose the Nantucket wind farm (Not in the Kennedys' ...$$$):

Do not doubt the Kennedys' devotion to renewable energy. If they had their way and the policies they support became law, there would be new wind farms along the coasts and on Appalachian hilltops, Midwestern prairies and Rocky Mountain ridges - more than 100,000 turbines twirling from sea to shining sea.

Just not in the waters where the Kennedys go sailing. Their love of renewable energy does not extend to the 130 turbines proposed for Nantucket Sound. Many other environmentalists consider it one of the most promising new energy projects in America, but the Kennedys are against it.

I'm no Kennedy basher, but I am human, so now I'm definitely for the Nantucket wind farm!

And he cites some research on the relative magnitude of energy subsidies:

When you add up the tax breaks and other federal aid to wind farms, the subsidy per unit of energy produced is more than double the subsidy given to nuclear and fossil-fuel power plants, according to Thomas Tanton, a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.

And he reports on the hidden wind farm subsidy:

Besides the federal dollars, wind farms get extra help from states, particularly states like New York and California, which have ordered utilities to generate a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy. This amounts to a hidden surcharge on consumers - the kind of subsidy that economists loathe. If state officials want to direct money to the owners of wind farms, they should at least dole it out openly.

Yet this stealth subsidy is so politically appealing that environmental groups are pushing to federalize it. The Natural Resources Defense Council, where Robert Kennedy works as a senior attorney, supported legislation in Congress that would force utilities to get 10 percent of their power from renewable energy. That would probably require erecting more than 100,000 wind turbines.

Senator Kennedy voted for that proposal and also for an even stricter version, which would have meant twice as many turbines. Fortunately, neither proposal has become law yet because some members of Congress have contemplated what would happen to the landscapes in their states.

And he offers his opinion about wind farms:

Personally, I'm agnostic on the scenic merits of a wind farm. I can understand why some people hate the sight and others don't. If you equate the turbines with environmental virtue, you may find it a lovely panorama, and you (unlike me) may even be willing to pay higher taxes and electricity bills for it.

But this should be a decision made by you and your neighbors - at the local level, not in Washington. And everyone should know exactly how much extra this virtue costs. Politicians and environmentalists shouldn't be trying to sneak 100,000 wind turbines into everyone's backyard but their own.

This all sounds reasonable to me.

And, I pay $4/month in higher energy bills for green electricity. Call me crazy.

Comments

[Jim Nachlin]

I'm not going to make any friends with this question, but does the war in Iraq count as a subsidy for fossil-fuel power plants?

[joshua corning]

I'm not going to make any friends with this question, but does the war in Iraq count as a subsidy for fossil-fuel power plants?

you bet...but i am kind of a freak...i would also say that ww2, the marshall plan and nato were subsities for ...well for all industry.

Is it impossible to have parallel intrusts? And should we only fight wars that harm our economic intrusts?

[gmoke]

Saw David Goodstein of Caltech speak on the End of Oil at MIT recently. When he talked about wind all he could come up with for a drawback was that it was "inconsistent." Otherwise, a great and cogent presentation. If you have a chance to see him, do go.

Wind is the fastest growing energy source around the world and US wind development lags behind Danish, German, and Japanese technology. Once we were the leaders, as we were in solar.

As for subsidies, I did some back of the envelope calculations on Federal subsidies to energy resources from 1950 to 1980 using government documents. As I recall, the numbers came out something like $60 billion for fossil fuels and nuclear and $6 billion for renewables, all renewables.

Senator Kennedy is not the most vocal or devious of the opponents against windpower. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee tried to include a stealth amendment in legislation this year that would outlaw any wind development offshore for the near future. Senator Alexander has a house on Nantucket. I wonder why Mr Tierney didn't mention him.

Has anybody reviewed the calculations on wind subsidies by "Thomas Tanton, a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research"? Not saying he's wrong, just that it would be good to check the work.

[allen claxton]

Here's at least one place where Tanton talks about his energy subsidy calculations.

[Costa]

Here is a 2000 report that attempted an accounting of energy subsidies for nuclear, wind, and solar.

The author's conclusion is that 95% of susbsidies from this group went to nuclear, but also it received higher susbsidies per unit of energy (kilowatt hour) produced when the technology was emerging.

[bird dog]

I still think wind-farming is feel-good granola BS, despite the Kennedy nonsense. Nuclear is the only way.

[pieter]

It should be noted that the institute for Energy Research is not a neutral organisation: it is a "thinktank" closely related to the Cato-institute.
IER lobbies for the established fossile fuel interests.

This kind of thinktanks is infamous for juggling with numbers and comparing apples with pears. I would not accept Tanton's (corrected) numbers without a very critical review of the way he derived them.

[Costa]

I guess the 'feel good granola BS' comment warrants a response. Most utility managers have three serious options for utility scale power generation at the moment - natural gas and wind on a short installation horizon, and coal on a somewhat longer installation horizon. Give fuel price unertainty of natural gas and uncertainty of LNG terminal siting to increase supply, it makes sense from a risk and hedging point of view to have some wind in your portfolio. So if wind can make a meaningful contribution to the grid, then I think it's a little beyond the 'granola' stereotype. The siting difficulties alone of new nuclear power plants makes them finacially unfeasible at the moment, so if we want power in the 5-10 year outlook, wind, gas, and coal are our utility scale options (also geothermal and hydro in selected areas).

[joshua corning]

am i the only one who gets the feeling that energy policy has degraded to who should the government gove the best subsidy to? Is it beyond reason to think hey about no subsidies for any energy source and then let the best one win (or best ones)

Anyway I have a distinct feeling that this idea will go exactly nowhere on this board.

[ralph]

Yeah, it's probably beyond reason. :-)

[Paul Dietz]

does the war in Iraq count as a subsidy for fossil-fuel power plants?

Not much of one -- few electric powerplants in the US burn oil. We don't import coal or natural gas from Iraq.