Wind Power News: Tennessee
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch.
Harness the wind: Clean Line Energy Partners eyes sending Western electricity to Tennessee
Developers of what would be America’s biggest wind power transmission line have scaled back their initial plans to wheel so much electrical power from Texas and Oklahoma to the Tennessee Valley. But the Houston company proposing to build the 700-mile power line insists its $2 billion proposal — half the size of the original 2009 plan — still makes economic and environmental sense for TVA and other Southeastern utilities. The project from Clean Line Energy Partners is still at least . . .
Sen. Lamar Alexander still tilting at wind energy
WASHINGTON — Few issues arouse as much passion for Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander as federal subsidies for wind-generated electricity. But utilities, including his home-state Tennessee Valley Authority, are finding they like wind power more and more. Alexander, up for re-election in 2014, argues the country needs 100 new nuclear plants to ensure low cost and clean power for the 21st century. At the same time, he has this year renewed efforts to strip the wind industry of a tax . . .
Taxing decision: Local biomedical firms hopeful for repeal of device tax
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., proposed the device tax repeal, and he plans to make up the state’s lost tax revenue by cutting a $12.1 billion tax credit that subsidizes wind turbine production, with the goal of repealing both provisions without increasing the federal debt.
“This amendment is about ending two damaging tax policies that are costing Americans billions of dollars, and costing Tennesseans good jobs,” Alexander said in a recent statement. “It gets rid of a 20-year-old, multibillion-dollar subsidy for unreliable, expensive wind energy that stands no chance of powering our nation’s 21st century economy, and it repeals the Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) tax on life-saving medical devices – Tennessee’s top export and an important source of good jobs.”
Federal case over soured wind energy deal sent out of Pennsylvania
A federal judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania has transferred a case stemming from a wind turbine project in Cambria County, Pa., to the Eastern District of Tennessee. Because a debt owed to one of the four separate companies involved in the project will likely weigh on the bankruptcy proceedings of another already under way in Tennessee, that district is a better venue for the case, said U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson of the Western District of Pennsylvania in . . .
Alexander: wind industry phase-out proposal is brazen
In a speech Thursday on the floor of the Senate, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tn.) called a proposal by the wind industry to phase out the wind production tax credit “a brazen fleecing of the taxpayers.” The new proposal has not received an official cost estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation, but an initial estimate by the American Energy Alliance puts the cost at $50 billion. “The idea of continuing to waste billions of taxpayer money over the next several . . .
Alexander: wind industry phase-out proposal “as brazen as a bank robbery in the middle of the day on Main Street”
“A proposal has been made to fleece the taxpayers out of an additional $50 billion. … It is a proposal by the wind developers of America to say to the taxpayers: Please give us $50 billion or so more dollars over the next six years to phase out the federal taxpayer subsidy for wind power. …The Congress has decided that federal taxpayer subsidies for wind power should end at the end of this year.” – Lamar Alexander
Nashville’s wind and solar project on Love Circle brings mixed reactions in early stages
Some residents and elected officials question whether the wind turbine was the right approach, given the length of time it takes to earn money back.
The Love Circle project could take more than a decade to recoup the initial investment in it, longer depending on government subsidies and how much the Tennessee Valley Authority pays for the electricity.
Houston-based firm sets open house sessions in Mid-South to discuss $2 billion wind energy project
The Houston-based firm planning a $2 billion project to transmit wind energy into the Memphis area and the Southeast will host a series of open-house sessions early next month to explain the proposal to the public. Clean Line Energy has scheduled meetings for Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 in Osceola, Ark., and Munford and Atoka in Tipton County. All three towns lie along the prospective path of transmission lines that would carry wind power from the Oklahoma panhandle and adjacent . . .
Plains and Eastern Clean Line seeks federal approval to sell capacity on proposed transmission line from Oklahoma Panhandle to Tennessee
A company that hopes to connect wind farms in the Oklahoma Panhandle with utility customers in Tennessee filed an application Friday with the federal government to establish rates for the project. Clean Line Energy Partners plans a $2 billion high-voltage, direct-current transmission line across Oklahoma, through Arkansas and into Memphis, Tenn. Its application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asks for permission to negotiate rates and sell service for the 600-kilovolt transmission line, called the Plains and Eastern Clean Line. . . .
Double energy research, end subsidies
This week, the U.S. Senate is likely to vote on President Obama’s plan to end oil subsidies and extend wind-power subsidies. If we really want to lower fuel prices, we should instead double energy research. To pay for it without adding to the federal debt, we should stop wasteful, long-term subsidies to both “Big Oil” and “Big Wind.” Look at shale gas, now being produced thanks to energy research. The U.S. suddenly has a 100-year supply of natural gas at . . .
