September 1, 2012
Illinois, Letters

Wind power nothing to be proud of

The State Journal-Register | www.sj-r.com 1 September 2012

(“Publicize city’s good things) proposes Springfield has been remiss in publicizing its clean energy accomplishments. Specifically cited was the benefit of caving to the Sierra Club’s extortion, with its resultant contracts for wind power running through the latter part of this decade.

While it’s true Springfield’s government and City Water, Light and Power aren’t exactly shouting the results of this decision, CWLP does in fact mention it on its website, thusly:

“Of the 628,359 MWH (megawatt hours) purchased by CWLP in 2011, 359,825 MWH was in the form of wind energy. CWLP paid $17,440,716 for the wind energy and sold it for $5,409,741 for a net cost to the utility of $12,030,975.”

So, we’re losing $12 million a year now and into the foreseeable future because of our elected officials’ decision to pay someone else over twice CWLP’s production cost for unreliable additional units of its core service, of which it produces a surplus, then turn around and sell them for a third of what they just paid.

Coincidentally, that’s about the shortage in CWLP funds that led to it being declared in technical default on its loans. If we could apply those funds to the city’s massive pension funding deficit instead of subsidizing an economic and environmental boondoggle, we’d be caught up about the same time those wind power contracts expire.

So this and other examples of how our city runs could be used to attract new businesses and young professionals. To Bloomington.

Gerald Naughton

Springfield


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/09/01/wind-power-nothing-to-be-proud-of/