Wind energy is a rat hole for tax money
www.eastoregonian.com 21 July 2011
Wind energy doesn’t make dollars and sense. Consider the following:
•Wind turbines – The U.S. dollar, instead of staying here at home like most of the material and job benefit, goes to overseas factories providing jobs for other countries. Our unemployment is still in the double digits. Neglected U.S. workforce.
•The jobs that are produced during construction at each project are very temporary, and there are only a few permanent jobs left after construction. Both costs tax and ratepayers millions of dollars initially and must be continually subsidized. Because of this they are basically government jobs that don’t contribute to the common general welfare of free enterprise. Rather, such jobs are a continual drain on local and national financial vitality. You see, government doesn’t produce wealth. Rather, it takes it from the citizenry and redistributes it, until a selected few has control of it and the rest of us are at their mercy. Dumb U.S. taxpayer.
•Federal tax dollars used here in Oregon, to subsidize something such as wind turbines is something other U.S. taxpayers will never receive any benefit from. Taxation without representation.
•From what I read in the paper, when the wind turbines are producing, the feds are also supplementing at least $20 a megawatt on top of the ratepayer paying $70/MW. That is $90/MW in negative dollars to $35 market, causing unnecessary expense to ratepayers and a rat hole to dump tax money into!
•With such extravagant subsidies by the government, wind turbines are competing against other utilities in a very unfair, lopsided manner as utilities are forced to justify their expenses to the Oregon PUC and other federal bureaucracies.
•Wind turbines and other renewable energy tax-devouring projects are often lumped into the popular items that supposedly reduce the United State’s dependence on foreign oil. That is a lie. There is very, very, very little Asian oil burnt by fossil power plants – it is too expensive. When they do run, it would not be unusual for the reason of stabilizing the grid because of volatile renewable energy. Much of the natural gas does come from our good Canadian neighbor, but only because the U.S. can’t access it’s own abundant supply due to environmental unrealists. The Northwest also uses low-sulfur U.S. coal, which provides jobs for Americans, supports industry and helps with emissions.
Leonard C. Routson
Umatilla
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/07/21/wind-energy-is-a-rat-hole-for-tax-money/