May 24, 2012
Opinions, U.S.

Obama among the wind vampires

By John Hayward | Human Events | www.humanevents.com 24 May 2012

President Obama is speaking today at an Iowa company called TPI Composites, which manufactures the blades for wind turbines.

His purpose is to call for the extension of tax credits for “green energy” companies… which is precisely the sort of thing he was excoriating the oil industry for, just weeks ago.

Wind power is a boutique distraction, which finally managed to reach about 2 percent of overall American energy generation after a massive, taxpayer-subsidized surge, accompanied by deliberate government efforts to crush other forms of energy generation. The idea that this represents a meaningful contribution to achieving independence from foreign oil is absurd, if not deranged.

We’re getting pretty close to the wind power peak, since we’re running short on places where people are willing to tolerate the construction of unsightly and dangerous wind farms. Wind power is so unreliable that in turbine-heavy England, the need to generate backup power from other sources has greatly reduced CO2-reducing benefits from windmills. In fact, some scientists argue that reliance upon wind power actually increases net CO2 emissions, an assertion the wind industry hotly disputes.

Also, wind power kills wildlife, including over a million birds per year. The Obama Administration’s response to this has been granting the wind power industry greater indulgences to kill more bald eagles without penalty.

As an added bonus, wind farms cause global warming. To be more specific, large wind farms produce increases in local air temperature. That’s not really global warming, of course, but neither is anything else. Wind farms are the one and only area where global warming cultists suddenly become very concerned about the “context” of temperature data, and work furiously to explain why a documentable increase in atmospheric temperature that is indisputably due to human activity is not “climate change.”

So the President wants taxpayer subsidies for wind turbines, while deliberately driving up the price of oil and coal power. But that’s not all. TPI Composites got about $9 million of your money from the Obama “stimulus,” but that’s less than 15 percent its overall financing.

The rest, a good $68 million, comes from… private equity firms. You know, the firms Obama thinks are job-destroying corporate “vampires.”

As Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller asks of the President, “What’s the truth about your feelings? Is private equity the monster you’re making it out to be, or is it just another part of a healthy capitalist system?” The answer, as far as any rational analysis can determine, is that private investments made in accordance with the proper ideology are acceptable, once they have been politically sanctified through compulsive taxpayer subsidies. Otherwise, they’re as evil as the chunk of David Warner that was left sitting in the toaster oven at the end of Time Bandits.

As for the wind power industry itself, the sight of private investors voluntarily choosing to invest in it, and successfully creating jobs while they turn a profit, would ordinarily warm my heart… but the wind vampires claim their industry can’t function unless they receive special subsidies, along with the benefit of government’s anti-competitive muscle leveled against products that enjoy far higher demand from the public, because they yield more useful energy at much lower costs.

Anyone who can figure out how to make an honest buck from wind power, creating real and sustainable jobs without looting taxpayer wallets, will deserve a round of applause, especially if they can do it without killing bald eagles. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to celebrate about watching the President who doubled our gas prices, added trillions to the national debt, and crushed the American workforce down to 1980s levels pat himself on the back for his investment genius. I would not have made those investments… if I had a choice.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/05/24/obama-among-the-wind-vampires/