By Lisa Linowes — August 8, 2022
“The Schumer-Manchin bill provides that after 2024 the traditional PTC and ITC programs expire, but the benefits live on through the new “Clean Electricity” tax credit program.”
“Based on published project footprints of recently sited wind projects in Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado, new wind turbines will spread across 30 million acres (50,000 sq. mi.) by 2032.”
The Schumer-Manchin bill passed by the US Senate this weekend and heading to the House erases any doubt whether Congress is serious about lowering inflation, addressing energy costs, or protecting the environment.
Ironically dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Schumer-Manchin will do nothing to reduce inflation. But what it will do is far worse. Schumer-Manchin will unleash the largest industrialization of U.S. open lands not seen since the damming of our western rivers. The modern “environmental” movement will finally realize its dream of transforming the mid-section of the United States, from North Dakota to Texas and Nevada to Ohio, into a massive electric generating facility powered by wind and solar.
Summary
Schumer-Manchin makes the wind and solar credits permanent, not phased out as advertised. …The environmental destruction that will be left by developers marching across the country carpeting our ridgelines and open lands with 600-foot spinning turbines, solar panels, substations, and miles of high voltage transmission is impossible to quantify. Habitats will be degraded and destroyed, viewsheds industrialized, and wildlife killed or displaced. Federal and state agencies will be hamstrung by new permitting rules – also part of Schumer-Manchin – that will impair their ability to avoid and minimize project impacts.
Permanent PTC/ITC
It’s been reported that Schumer-Manchin extends the PTC and ITC for 10 years through to 2032, but that’s not what the language says.
The credits phase out after 2032, but only after annual greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. electricity production drop by 75% or more below 2022 levels. To achieve this level of emission reduction, the US would have to severely constrain the public’s access to reliable generation, which won’t happen. The numbers below speak for themselves.
The upshot is that the wind industry, after 30-years, has found a path to making the 1992 PTC permanent!
Billions of dollars more in PTCs and ITCs will pour into Big Wind and solar projects that are not accounted for in the 10-year, $260 billion price tag Senator Wyden cited. New wind and solar projects built after 2032 will be PTC/ITC eligible!
Also remember that the PTC is earned on each megawatt hour produced during the first 10 years of project life, which means that facilities placed in service in 2025 earn the subsidy well past 2032. In all cases these payouts will be in addition to the $113 billion already anticipated in PTCs/ITCs under current law!
The Schumer-Manchin bill provides that after 2024 the traditional PTC and ITC programs expire, but the benefits live on through the new “Clean Electricity” tax credit program. Eligible facilities are those placed in service after 2024 that produce zero emissions. “No longer we’re picking winners and losers. It’s tech neutral,” boasted Senator Wyden (D-OR) who put the cost of the bill’s clean energy credits at $260 billion over ten years.
Tech neutral? On the surface, maybe. But make no mistake, this is nothing more than a repackaged wind and solar subsidy program with a few batteries thrown in for good measure. Let’s explain:
New zero-emission resources, including small modular nuclear or hydrogen generation, won’t reach commercial scale anytime soon. Of the other technologies eligible for the PTC/ITC under current law, wind and solar are the only ones being built in a material way and the only ones that will continue under Schumer-Manchin. The others (geothermal, qualified hydro, municipal solid waste, open-loop biomass etc.) are either too capital intensive, require too much labor to be viable, can’t meet the zero-emission requirement, or are out-of-favor with the environmental community.
As further proof, Schumer-Manchin explicitly retains 1992 as the base year for inflation adjustments. That’s the year the Energy Policy Act of 1992 – which created the PTC – was adopted! The bill’s authors are reasonably certain that no other resource but wind (and maybe solar), will try to claim the production credit. All other provisions in the bill addressing inflation adjustments amend the base year to 2021, 2022 or 2023.
Destroying the Environment to Save It
For those less concerned with cost and more concerned with saving the planet, think again.
The environmental destruction that will be left by developers marching across the country carpeting our ridgelines and open lands with 600-foot spinning turbines, solar panels, substations, and miles of high voltage transmission is impossible to quantify.
Habitats will be degraded and destroyed, viewsheds industrialized, and wildlife killed or displaced. Federal and state agencies will be hamstrung by new permitting rules – also part of Schumer-Manchin – that will impair their ability to avoid and minimize project impacts. Incidental take permits will be issued for protected species at a level never seen before. Politics, not science, will drive permit approvals as the emphasis shifts to operational mitigation. After a project is built, there may be a year or two of post-construction monitoring after which people will move on, but the harms will continue.
How do we know this? Because it’s been happening for two decades. Under Schumer-Manchin we will see more of the same but at an accelerated level involving highly conflicted lands.
Development patterns for the last few years inform how much wind and solar is likely to be built over the next decade. The wind industry managed to install 61,000 new megawatts (MW), or roughly 30 thousand turbines, during the period when the PTC was phasing down. Under a full PTC/ITC regime, an unlimited timeframe to build within, and an industry that will weaponized Schumer-Manchin to force approval of its projects, we could easily see a doubling of the current wind capacity bringing the total to nearly 280,000 MW by 2032.
Utility-scale solar will be built at an equal pace. By the end of the first half of 2022, 66,000 MW of solar was operating with another 74,000 MW in the pipeline. The pipeline will get built and much more will follow. The destruction of Nevada’s deserts is already underway. Schumer-Manchin will make it impossible to stop. Meanwhile, solar developers are targeting our richest farmlands (think food supply and food security) from Maryland to Iowa while promoting the idea that the soil will revert to full food production immediately after the panels are removed. Experts at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension explain why this is not true. None of this considers the explosion of new battery storage and potentially 30,000 MW of offshore wind that Schumer-Manchin will push forward.
The land requirements will be enormous. Based on published project footprints of recently sited wind projects in Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado, new wind turbines will spread across 30 million acres (50,000 sq. mi.) by 2032.
The wind industry will push the narrative that the space between turbines is dual use and shouldn’t count as part of the project but that argument doesn’t fly anymore. The space is filled with turbine noise, flashing lights and flickering shadows cast over a mile away. Ask visitors to Texas who describe West Texas as an alien landscape where one can drive for miles and miles and see nothing but wind turbines. For solar, there is no space between panels for animals to thrive, and any vegetation in the way will be mowed down and the land left barren.
The degradation of these sprawling industrial complexes on our historic, visual, and environmental resources has been ignored by the media and dismissed by wind and solar boosters for years. Those who raise concerns, few of whom are part of national environment groups, have been attacked, marginalized and dismissed as NIMBY (“not in my backyard”).
Manchin?
Senator Manchin knows this which makes his support of Schumer-Manchin so surprising. When he was governor of West Virginia, his State experienced an alarming situation with bat mortality at the 44-turbine Mountaineer wind project owned and operated by NextEra (formerly FPL Energy).
Studies conducted on site estimated levels of bat mortality “…among the highest ever recorded in the world.” This and other catastrophic environmental events prompted West Virginia Reps. Rahall and Mollohan, both Democrats, to hold congressional hearings in 2007. Rep Mollohan’s opening comments captured the issue this way:
[T]here is little reason to believe that the wind energy projects that are being built in environmentally sensitive areas will be any less deadly to wildlife than those built in the past. The cumulative impact of all these projects on wildlife has to be of concern to Congress.… [W]ind energy developers are not going to voluntarily take all the steps that are reasonably necessary for the protection of wildlife. They just aren’t going to do it. These developers are for-profit corporations that, like any other, are answerable to shareholders. Their basic imperative will always be to get turbines up and running and thereby generating some amount of electricity, not much, by the way, and more importantly for their owners major tax credits.
Rep. Mollohan’s statement is as true today as it was in 2007, when the U.S. claimed just 11,600 MW of operating wind. Unfortunately, nothing came of the hearings after congressional Democrats, joined at the hip with Big Wind, crushed the effort for federal action. As for the Mountaineer project, NextEra would not allow further studies after the bat kills were discovered and, according to Rep. Mollohan, “refused to alter its operations in a way that could reduce bat mortality.”
Other Factors
Senate Democrats still promote the notion that adding renewables to the grid reduces electricity prices. This is false. Tax credits provide a significant out-of-market revenue source for developers by shifting costs to taxpayers at large. Wind and solar are not cheaper, they’re subsidized! When wind and solar energy floods the grid in excess of demand, they depress market prices which harms more reliable (unsubsidized) generators. There is no justification for any government program that undercuts healthy, competitive businesses, but that’s what’s happening.
No traditional source of electric generation has ever received an open-ended, unlimited subsidy comparable to the federal PTC paid for every megawatt hour of energy put on the grid. But there’s another reality that keeps the subsidies flowing. After 30-years the business of Big Wind and solar is no longer about energy production. It’s about tax avoidance. An entire industry has grown around renewable energy tax policy and that industry holds tremendous sway on Capitol Hill.
Conclusions
Schumer-Manchin is part of the single-minded, “hurry up and get it done” mentality behind the renewables push in the United States. This coupled with the unconstrained flow of taxpayer subsidies to any developer who shows up has left no time for communities, businesses, or governments to consider the conflicts and consequences of their actions. The wind and solar industries, wrapped in a faux green cloak, have convinced the public that they’re best positioned to save the planet while doing little to address the destruction their projects cause.
Environmentalists, concerned citizens, and all our elected representatives must fight back against this stunning legislation. We cannot allow a doubling down on a major public policy failure. The incentives of corporate America are now to damage our open spaces and precious wildlife–and misallocate resources in a teetering economy.
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Lisa Linowes is founder and head of of WindAction where she volunteers today. This post is taken from her full essay here.
People have got to get involved at the local level and block this shit.
Voting the puppies out at all levels is required.
Assuming we will be allowed to.
Didn’t anyone learn anything from Donald Trump’s successful 2016 election campaign? It seems that in the 2024 campaign there will still be only one candidate that ‘gets it’. It’s all rather depressing.
Good luck. With the lure of thousands of dollars for allowing the windmills on their property and the promise of buckets of tax money to counties and other governmental entities being offered, it will be (is now!) an uphill battle. And it is all free money!!! RIGHT???
This has come to our region. We are up to 200 square kilometers of wind and solar projects, existing, approved or in the pipeline just near our town alone. Our local council held a ‘closed’ meeting with a developer looking to lock up close to 90 square kilometers of land just for one wind and solar project. There are a number on the council who will benefit from accommodation requirements for backpackers filling construction jobs and other workers.
Our town is historic, dating back to the gold rush era of the late 1800’s. There are more than a hundred buildings that have been declared of historic significance, some of them heritage listed. There are no traffic lights or roundabouts here, it’s a bit of a step back in time. We have a thriving community of 2,500 people, four museums, three schools, sports grounds, antique stores and enough shops and other businesses to sustain us quite well.
All of this is nestled in undulating hills with mountains in the distance. The land here is prime agricultural and we are a well known wine region. We also graze cattle and sheep with some crops grown here too. Our region, here in Central West NSW Australia has been named in the top ten regional destinations for tourism for two years running.
The project I mentioned will see 60 wind turbines built, each one at 280 meters high and 200 meters wide with a 7MW capacity. They will start around 8 kilometers from town and may or may not have aviation lights on them. The host landholders have been offered what they see as money for nothing and some of them are getting on in years. Others still don’t live on their land so are not confronted by the infrastructure and their neighbors have been bribed not to complain.
Wedge Tailed Eagles nest in this area and they are protected. Two endangered species have been identified, the Barking Owl and the Long Eared Pied Bat.The developers are only required to purchase certificates. The area here is teeming with wildlife. Kangaroos, wallabies, emus, wombats, echidna, small marsupials, turtles and reptiles to name a few. We have many different types of parrots here and many of them fly across the valley in huge flocks at dawn and dusk. We also enjoy water birds and finches among many other varieties.
I feel like my heart is being ripped out. All this for infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
It’s all under control lay folks as these people go to university and they have big compooters-
Switching to 100% Renewable Energy Will Immediately Drop Prices (mymodernmet.com)
Trust the science and the scientists like Nick and griff et Al.
“griff” is a scientist?
Al is a scientist?
The inconvenient truth is that AL is a more qualified CliScientist than griff.
(Not that that’s saying much.)
In today’s world, we are what we say we are.
Yep, you don’t have to be a scientist, all you have to do is to identify as one!
That’s great…
I’m a Scientificist
Observa,
except you can’t run on 100% renewables and it certainly won’t make prices go down.
This is not a science field but an engineering one.
One of the main problems with Solar is that it only produces Nameplate at temps below 75F and from 10am-2pm local time during the summer months. Winter brings lower Sun angle reducing capacity and hot summer days bring temperatures that are higher than optimal also reducing capacity. All in all Solar only produces Nameplate about 20% of the time for the first few years then slowly degrades. To produce the 74,000 MW “in the pipeline” would require 370,000MW installed capacity. The 74,000MW planned will only provide 14,800MW generation.
Long before they could install 370,000 MW of solar, they would have to start replacing the first units installed. In other words, they would need to use most of the new units, just to keep up.
Running faster to stay in place.
And if you should stumble, then you will never be able to make up the lost time.
+1 It’s a geometric problem that gets so bad with time you can never have a period where they are all actually operating at the same time when you do it on a national, or even statewide, scale with any high percentage of electricity produced by solar. Do the math.
Now if you want to see something funny
Germany can’t ship coal because of the drought
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/the-rhine-runs-dry-and-becomes-impassable-to-crucial-coal-barges-as-europe-suffers-record-drought/ar-AA10waCU?li=AAgfLCP
Worst in 500 years, yet, something similar in 2018?
Sure they can – they just need to ship by rail.
It’s worse than that.
Your 370,000 MW assumes that all solar panels are brand new.
The reality of the situation is that all of the panels range from brand new, to about 20 years old and in need of replacing. Solar panels decrease in output at around 1% to 3% per year. The hotter the panels get, the quicker they degrade.
Let’s assume that a 20 year old panel has lost 20% of it’s generating capacity.
To make the math easier, let’s also assume that the rate of loss is actually linear.
Under these assumptions, the average panel is 10 years old and has lost 10% of it’s generating capacity. To compensate for this you are going to need to increase the total installed capacity by 10% in order to compensate.
So, instead of needing 370,000 MW, you will need 407,000 MW.
I keep asking this question but get no answer. Bryan A may have some insight.
If a solar panel (or other device) is designed to absorb as much solar energy as possible, does it absorb more energy than the surface below in its shadow? If the panel absorbs more, is it causing a net global warming effect? Are solar panels not, in essence, AGW devices?
Real world example: If sun hits a panel and caused the snow to melt off its surface, is the panel now absorbing more energy than an frozen white snowy surface reflecting energy back to space?
The solar panels get intensely hot, like asphalt does, and folks think that this causes things like the Urban Heat Island Effect
But while the sun is shining, that heat is radiating back upwards according to Stefan’s Law
I calculate that if the panel gets to 70°C and has Emissivity of = unity, it will be radiating over 750Watts per square metres straight back out to space
Given a Standard Sun of 1,000W/sqm, that gives an effective Albedo of 0.75 – almost the same as new snow.
The same would apply to asphalt.
Yes it gets intensely hot and makes thermometers skyrocket BUT, it does not trap or store any much Heat Energy – the high temperature effectively makes asphalt into a mirror
Concrete, in a cityscape is a whole other matter.
Firstly concrete actually contains a lot of water = good heat capacity.
But mainly, concrete is nearly always chock full of re-bar and those metal rods work as Heat Pipes, moving heat captured at the surface deep inside the concrete itself and whatever structure its formed into.
Isn’t that crazy:
Concrete = White = high Albedo – Heat Trap/warmer
Asphalt and Solar Panels = Black = low Albedo = Heat Radiator/cooler
Peta, Thanks for the reply and yours too Bryan. So for the sake of a simplified argument, we can stipulate panels absorb and emit the same amount of energy. But Bryan says 6% is transferred to energy. So of the 100% energy absorbed, do panels reflect 94% heat back to space an send 6% to the grid? I doubt it. My gut says a panel gathers more energy from the sun than bare ground.
The panels will absorb more energy than the shadow below as the direct sunlight strikes it while indirect light strikes in the shadow zone. However only about 6 % is transferred into electricity and far more to heat needing dissipation. In turn the hot panels do radiate heat into their local environment.
Since the panels are darker (lower albedo) than the ground they sit on, they likely do add to the localized effect of warming any thermometer in proximity.
If you’re dependent on energy production then the clear panel is far better than the snow covered panel, especially in a game where small percentages matter, like available generation for load balancing … but far worse than dispatchable capacity with 24/7 availability as the Sun isn’t available at night or Early Morning/Late Afternoon. The increased albedo does nothing to increase generation and Solar PV is all about generation for 4 hours per day
Citizen Smith – the answer is: Nothing that happens on or over land has any effect on Earth’s climate, as illustrated by the fact that deserts are cold at night. Solar panels over land have no climate impact. Climate is driven through the oceans.
Sounds like the problem with solar is all the typos on the Nameplate.
“To produce the 74,000 MW “in the pipeline” would require 370,000MW installed capacity.”
As you know that wouldn’t be useful without storage. But I would take issue with the production and degradation. My oldest panel (about 15 years old) is putting out 23 volts with 5 pm sun angle and 93 degrees in the shade (panel is warmer). With a cumulus cloud blocking the sun it drops to 18 volts. That’s with the load from the charger.
Solar is useful as long as they are honest about it: namely that it is worth less than dispatchable power because it is not delivered on demand.
And, to be more reliable, requires both over capacity to be installed & expensive and heavy storage capacity materials to me mined, processed, and built
Additionally, increased RE penetration invariably brings on increased curtailment because the transmission and storage mis-match is generally an after thought due to the capex blowout with diminishing returns.
Studying the output of solar farms in Australia from anero.id/energy it appears no solar farm at any time produces nameplate capacity, it could be that the panels are optimized for maximum annual energy, it could be the sun is not directly overhead. ( be aware some of the solar farm nameplate figures are incorrectly entered into the website). The highest actual annual capacity factor found in Australia is 30% where it as LCOE figures seem to be based around 29%. A large number of farms fail to produce the annual output advertised on their website see opennem.org.au for annual and other output figures.
It’s similar to the power out specs for high priced sound systems, back in the 70’s and 80’s. They were ALL claiming to have thousands of watts of ‘sound power’, when they actually only produced, at best, MAYBE 100 watts of actual power. It sells more widgits when the numbers are higher.
And all this is supported by the major enviro groups- the same people who violently oppose well managed logging projects.
If I ran a logging company, I’d apply for a ‘renewables’ permit to clear out a heavily timbered property so I could put in wind or solar.
–
Then I’d log it to whatever degree I wanted aaand oopsie! Seems that somehow, I can’t follow through on the solar or wind part of the project. Oh well…
–
As Bugs Bunny would say, “Ain’t I a stinkah?”
😉
Ahh like that varmint
Only good thing in this is that I think it can be repealed, probably even through “reconciliation”, and it is a “revenue raiser” so that amount can be spent on useful things without another revenue offset.
It’s only a revenue raiser is make two assumptions.
1) The phase out of the new subsidies will actually happen,
2) The new taxes in the bill have no impact on the economy and tax revenue.
Beyond that, the Democrats want you to believe that all the new IRS agents being hired will all be concentrating on “the rich”.
The IRS is already concentrating on the rich, that’s where the money and glory is. The new agents will be concentrating on the middle class and any organization that falls short of the new left wing standards.
The average amount of additional tax owed in an IRS audit is approximately $6,500, not including penalties and interest.
You cannot get that low an average by exclusively auditing multi-millionaires. The overwhelming majority of taxpayers are middle class. That’s where the recoverable money is, that’s where the audits will be.
“Don’t cheat on your taxes and you have nothing to worry about”
– that’s really what they’re saying
I read a study a few years ago. They created a person with a fairly average income situation. Made use of all the normal deductions as well as a couple of non-standard ones. Nothing complicated. They gave this information to a dozen tax accountants and had them all compute the guys taxes owed.
For a dozen “experts”, they got back a dozen different results.
If the experts can’t agree on what you owe, why should we assume that an IRS agent is going to be able to come up with the right answer?
As in all audits, a pre-determined agenda of audit targets will be disseminated and adhered to. With more agents, the agenda items will increase as well. Remember the trillions of dollars the IRS recovered when waitresses were agenda audited for tips.
Trillions? Surely you jest.
To the IRS auditors, the ‘right answer’ is as high as they can make it! The Higher the better!
Ve ahhr comink into your houz. If you have broken no lawz you have noting to worry about.
For the last 7 years TurboTax has filed me with the alternative maximum personal deduction rather than the itemized deductions so nothing to worry about
All of the tax prep ‘experts’ will guarantee to beat any OTHER tax prep ‘experts’ and get you more money back. They do this by ‘giving’ you all sorts of new deductions. If there is an audit, they fall back on the lie that they only entered what YOU told them! Then, YOU are on the hook for those fraudulent claims, NOT the ‘experts’! This is why I still prefer to do my OWN taxes, following the laws and restrictions that I know are legal. I hope. no made up claims! I have receipts for everything.
You are telling me that you can know which of a large set of numbers went into an average.
Is Lois Lerner going to be involved with interviewing the new hires?
Whether she is or not, you can bet that audits will be targeted.
(Soros, Clintons, Pelosis, Bidens, etc., will not be audited.)
Follow the money and the lobbyists, not the official distractions like CO2 or sea level. Let the great tax credit games begin. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Both the Congressional Budget Office and the left wing mag “Economist” agree that this bill will have little, if any, impact on inflation.
On the other hand, Krugman of the NYT declares that this bill is the first step in saving the planet.
From all the hoopla over this bill, one might get the impression that this is the first bill that has ever addressed the Global Warming scam.
From all the hoopla over this bill, one might get the impression that they are getting ready to declare victory so that they can move on to the next scam.
It’ll definitely have an effect on inflation…a negative effect
As soaring energy costs drive up consumer prices at every step in the process
On the other hand, if the economy slows even more, that could depress inflation.
You seem to forget, Mark, the “Stagflation” of years past. Government can do the seemingly impossible: Generate inflation and recession at the same time.
This ^
In case you’re wondering WTF ITC and PTC:
Another few billions in off the book tax credits when the country can least afford it.
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/baseload/itc-or-ptc-for-your-renewable-energy-project/
Thanks for this. A couple of notable quotes:
‘The investment tax and production tax credits came about when the Bush administration placed an emphasis on developing alternative energy sources over fossil fuels.’
‘“Without national leadership, capitalism on its own never goes out and invents an industry,” said Ron Rossi, an attorney with Polsinelli & Shughart PC in Denver who specializes in renewable deals.’
Everything you need to know about the Left and their RINO handmaidens.
Fortunately, people like Carnegie and Edison didn’t ‘know’ that.
Read my lips. No new Taxes. Oh wait, except for taxing social security and unemployment benefits. But do not worry. It’s only temporary. Ya right.
Yeah, the Federal government is the only entity that has ever invented a industry. Politicians and government bureaucrats are constantly on the lookout for new industries to better the lot of the people.
Coming up – a massive transfer of American wealth to China.
Coming up?!? Where have you been for the last 30 years?
My whole career was in manufacturing, and I have had the honor of being thrown out of some of America’s finest companies as the production was sent over to China. Of the manufacturing concerns left in the U.S., many or all of the components and materials were sent over from China for a bit of final assembly.
I think maybe you’re just referring to our bank accounts, Terry? It wasn’t clear to me.
The real wealth that was transferred was our manufacturing base, and that train left the station long ago.
When Trump cut the US corporate tax rate from the highest in the world, to one of the lowest, a lot of businesses started transferring economic activity back to the US.
The Democrats want to end this trend.
PTC and ITC mean exactly what?
Production tax credit, investment tax credit.
PTC: Production Tax Credit
Primarily (exclusively?) for wind power. Gives money to the asset owner for each unit of energy that goes onto the grid from the asset. This incentivizes new builds, and also leads to wind asset owners bidding negative prices. Even if they have to pay $10/MWh to shove their electricity onto the grid they get $20 from the Feds.
ITC: Investment Tax Credit
For other generation (batteries, solar, apparently nuclear and geothermal now maybe carbon capture). This reduces the cost of investing in new generation by directly paying for part of the installation (its a bit different than that, but close enough). It doesn’t have the weird effect of incentivizing negative pricing, but still massively distorts the market.
If wind and solar are “the cheapest forms of electricity generation” then these tax credits don’t make any sense. The equipment would be built out regardless of incentives.
production & investment tax credits
This is going to big folks, very big. Large segments of the economy and “green jobs” will now be driven by tax credit mining on a scale only dreamed of by lobbyists for high-cost rooftop solar and wind farmers.
Any bets that the new IRS enforcers …er… agents will count as “green” jobs?
States need to start taking their land back. More prominent people have to start speaking out about how much harm these windmills do. The American West is one of the most scenic places you could find, we don’t need anymore of it covered in bird killing monstrosities.
I love visiting the desert lands of Nevada, Utah, NM, Arizona etc when coming over from the UK. The very thought of that magnificent landscape being destroyed appalls me. It must be resisted.
95% of those states are hairy butt ugly. Maybe Brits like hair butts or maybe on your brief visit you found the few and far between landscapes.
Just for the record, I am looking at one now and see no wind turbines. If I drive 10 minutes I will see many located in dry land wheat fields. Next to the 90k beef feedlot, packing plant, pulp mill, and railroad tracks on both sides if the river.
Like climate change, destroying the landscape is an invented and imposiblle problem.
I can’t imagine sticking wind turbines in soya fields impacts the scenic landscape
Extraneous verbiage. Your first three words were all you needed to make your point.
I can’t imagine sticking wind turbines anywhere
I can’t imagine the NEED to stick wind turbines ANYWHERE – but I’m sure part of the “permitting streamlining” built into the Inflation Expansion and Virtue Signaling Act will ensure that “Wind Farms” and “Solar Farms” can be more easily shoved down the throats of the ‘locals.’
This is an example of what happens when the people are cut out of elections and their votes destroyed. Politicians don’t have to worry about elections.
I’m confused in how this got through a Budget Reconciliation Bill. It’s not. It should not be allowed to be a Budget Reconciliation Bill.
Unfortunately, it’s whatever they want to call it, Keith. Who’s going to push back?
There are many people pushing back on the Australian version of this crime. But since the politicians, the MSM and much of the science has been bought off it makes squat diddley difference.
There are a lot of things happening that shouldn’t be allowed. But, they are. The MSM tells most people how to vote, and when that doesn’t work, creative ways are found to install the Swamp Creatures. It is the beginning of the end. The only upside for me personally is that I probably won’t be around to see the end result.
I remember when Earth First! had a campaign to shoot windmills that pumped water for cattle in remote and desert locations. Many turbines were punched full of holes killing the mechanism. Just think what a 300 WinMag could do at a mile distance.
Enough of them would cut the cost of electricity. Nice thought.
‘Schumer-Manchin is part of the single-minded, “hurry up and get it done” ‘
“More like Hurry Up and Loot as Much as Possible Before We lose the Congress”
The democrats, having appeared to be on the verge of losing on their Climate Bill, renamed the same bill the “Inflation fighting bill” because Americans are most concerned (and for good reason) with inflation.
Reality is this is the inflation CAUSING bill.
This is what these dishonest people do.
They manufacture a fake world and sell that to the people to get their counterproductive, self serving political agenda passed.
Just like them renaming the current scientific Climate Optimum for life on this planet from slight, mostly beneficial warming and the increase in the beneficial gas, CO2 a political Climate Crisis based on junk science and DISinformation.
If what they were selling was the truth……..they wouldn’t have to name it the complete opposite of what it is/does.
The other night Gutfeld said that it should be called the Sex Bill because the people are being screwed.
Against their will – so call it The Rape the USA Act.
I have been hoping that inflation in steel and energy costs would keep the construction of wind/solar plant in abeyance for a time despite massive new subsidies. Just enough time so that a couple of very destructive projects get built and finally get the citizenry off their collective butts.
I have heard people around here saying that a person will not even notice 600 foot tall turbines because they are too small to notice. Ignorance masquerading as sophistication.
They’re up there with some of the tallest buildings in the Southern Hemisphere.
Permanent tax credits for green energy is good for America. You cannot get green energy to be viable any other way. The charade has finally stopped and the bill will be paid for by consumers.
The democrats own this completely and it is now their legacy. Along with the higher medical costs with lower service levels they instituted, you now get intermittent power at greater cost.
People will soon realize that those who want to lower their standard of living are not their friends. That is why it is good for America.
The bill will be paid by the taxpayers. And how long is “soon”?
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-1-14-calculating-the-full-costs-of-electrifying-everything-using-only-wind-solar-and-batteries
Gregory provides a tentative number for the additional storage costs that could be necessary for full electrification of the United States system, with all current fossil fuel generation replaced by wind and solar. That number is $433 trillion. Since the current U.S. annual GDP is about $21 trillion, you will recognize that the $433 trillion represents more than 20 times full U.S. annual GDP. In the post I will give some reasons why Gregory may even be underestimating what the cost would ultimately prove to be.”
Not only that, but IT WILL PROBABLY NEED TO BE REPLACED in a time span of less than 20 years, and the entire economy would have to be dedicated to its serial replacement.
Doesn’t exactly sound “sustainable,” now does it?!
The good news here is that no Congress can order another Congress what to approve, disapprove, fund, or defund in future years. This bill only does what it’s advertised to do if future Congresses and future Presidents choose to allow it to continue. There will be a new Congress come January 2. The Government can post all the promises for PTCs and other giveaways it likes, but unless Congress funds them annually, they don’t happen.
This doesn’t mean Schumer Manchin is dead, but we have elections every other year and elections matter.
That is how it is supposed to work. However, I have lost faith in how the system is manipulated by the main-stream media. After all, Biden hid in his basement instead of going on the road to campaign, and he got elected anyway. Note that Yahoo news has flooded their ‘news’ recently with ignorant Op-Eds about crime and gun control, ostensibly with the purpose of building support for even more draconian Prior Restraint gun control laws. Yesterday, there was an article pointing out that things are not as bad as they appear because there has actually been a decline of some 3% in violent crime, after an increase of 40%. In my cynicism, I interpret that as the propagandists realizing that they have oversold the crime meme and need to dial it back because the mid-term elections are three months away. They probably want to be able to claim that under Biden and a Democrat-controlled Congress, crime has gone down, adding it to their list of accomplishments by this administration.
The Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Column.
DuhWayne, Even when the Republicans take back the House this fall, they won’t be able to overturn the Dimocrat’s mess. Why, because the Senate would have to go along, and the Senate might stay with the Dims. Even if the Republicans take the Senate too, Biden (assuming he doesn’t get put into dementia care) will veto any bill the Republicans pass. Overturning this mess will take a complete sweep of the Presidency and Congress, but even that might not be sufficient as once a program provides pork to a number of states, it rarely gets overturned. It’s going to take a public outcry but by then huge damage to the environment and the economy will have been done.
Nope – aside from your insulting, juvenile and stupid corruption of my name, your understanding of the Constitution is all wrong.
Only the House can originate funding bills, and it takes both the House and the Senate to approve any annual appropriations bill. That’s it – nothing gets funded at all unless the House votes for it, as well as the Senate … one house is not enough. Presidents cannot fund themselves. The Senate cannot overrule the House.
Nothing the government does that requires even just one dollar of spending can happen unless the funds are appropriated by Congress.
This is the way our government works, how it has always worked, and will always work in the future, inasmuch as there is zero chance the Constitution will be amended to gut the House’s role in funding the government.
But the sitting President (AKA Let’s Go Brandon) can VETO any Bill passed by both houses that doesn’t carry sufficient House and Senate support (60%) to overturn said VETO
It willill take a major overturn in both houses to reach this majority
Live by the Senate budget reconciliation scam, die by the scam.
A lot of economic damage can be done over the next 2.4 years (January 2025) that might not be easily repaired through future legislation. It could even take more than 2 terms to reverse the potential damages
There are 14 instances of the use of the acronym PTC, but not a single definition provided. One has to follow the link to the original article to find the definition she is using, or read through all the comments.
just imagine if you had to replace the boilers/turbines and generators every few years in all our current coal and gas generating plants … thats what these “renewables” are like … they are REPLACEABLE, not renewable … the “fuel” (wind/sun) being free doesn’t make them cheap or “renewable” …
an offshore 1 mw turbine can cost $3 million … with a real world capacity factor of 40% (or less) that means it costs $7,500 per kw … a natgas plant costs about $800 per kw … that doesn’t include the cost of the land or ocean lease (not insignificant for windmills) and the cost of the grid scale unicorn (i.e. non existent) battery needed …
and the windmills need to be replaced every 15 years …
Replaceable, not Renewable …
Imagine if you hard to keep digging up wind…
The fuel source is free though not available on Demand but the materials require massive amounts of mining, refining, processing and transporting … AND …Coal and Gas/Oil (petrochemical stocks) are still required to be mined/drilled
Who would be stupid enough though to think that wind could adequately, reliably power a utility scale electricity grid?
No need to even think about how to “capture” it, if the implausibility of it as a proper fuel application was given 2 seconds of rational thought.
I can think of two…and both start with “G”
.
.
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Germany
Griff
Imagine if you had to keep digging to pay for the tax credits for others and their lobbyists and their transmission lines to nowhere.
I live in Kansas. Wait until a miles long tornado wipes out a whole lot of solar panels and wind turbines. Who’s going to pay for their replacement? Are they required to carry insurance against such a happening? Will rate payers have increased costs to establish a “flood insurance” fund? I have never read about how this is going to be handled.
A couple of years back, a hurricane destroyed almost all of the solar power panels that had been installed in Puerto Rico. Fortunately for them, the fossil fuel plants were all up and running in a couple of days.
You DO have to keep digging up the resources needed to manufacture windmills and solar panels, inuding lots of “RARE EARTH” materials.
Which part of “What a colossally stupid idea this is” do you not get?!
Greed is an ugly thing.
Yet it is the driving force behind socialism/communism.
“Yet it is the driving force behind socialism/communism.”
Haha that is too funny coming from Gollum of this site. “Get your hands off my stuff. It’s all mine….”
Did your parents not teach you to share?
Simon, please check the wraps on your man-bun.
They’re probably wound too tight, and impeding blood and oxygen flow to your brain.
Just here to help . . . 🙂
Man bun… I wish.
How typical for a socialist.
Let’s see. Wanting to keep what you earned. Evil.
Wanting everyone else to give you their stuff. Good.
Beyond that, I just love how he defines having armed men come and take your stuff, as sharing.
Like most socialists, Simon actually believes he will be on the free end of free stuff, that’s why he like socialism. It beats working for a living.
Also, Simon is pretty dumb, so thinking is hard when he shares a brain with Griff.
Russia colluuuusion bozo on the seen. Have you found colluuuusion yet?
How socialist of you.
You actually believe that sending agents of the government in order to seize other people’s stuff, in order to give it to you, counts as “sharing”.
BTW, I’m willing to bet that I give more (both in an absolute and on a percentage basis) to charity than you do,
Yep.
Very likely the Inflation Reduction Act will have the same impact as the Affordable Care Act.
and any other government programs with “Safe” or “Fair” in their titles.
Sometimes, you just have to get your (##) fingers burned to realise that fires are = Hot Things.
## This applies to Children normally, so what’s going on here?
Climate alarmism is responsible for the largest fraud scheme that the world has ever seen.
Why is Net Zero all about electricity generation? How about shipping, aviation and trucking?
Answer is that it is also about those…
That is true, the goal of NetZero is the destruction of everything.
Now if you can just get China and Russia to play ball 🙂
And CoP and WEF conferences.
And China.
Net Zero is about control.
It’s certainly not about the environment.
The good news is that if China attacks in daytime on a moderately windy day they will fail.
With an 8 year paybaxk and 25 year lifetime, if you use solar energy to produce solar panels, and do nothing else with them, in 40 years you will have 30 times as many panels as you have today.
You have your numbers reversed.
Wind and Solar has not lowered any power bills anywhere in the world. Just ask Kalifornia, Texas, UK, Germany, Australia how well their bills have gone down. Now to get bills no one can afford. While the food disappears cutting “nitrogen” runoff in Canada, Ireland, Netherlands. When will the revolt happen? The only way to stop this insanity. The upper 1% should be the bottom 0.5% and good riddance. Civilization should be growing not starved in the cold and dark.
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/07/01/wind-solar-wipe-out-new-study-reveals-grand-scale-of-green-energy-bird-slaughter/ No real total has been done for the deaths of birds and bats from these wind mills. The website has good information on the damage they do to everything. 300 ton monster coming down look out.
And the worst part is who is responsible to recycle the wind mills after they wear out. As in those in Kalifornia just rotting away after the useful life has ended. https://stopthesethings.com/2022/07/29/planet-sized-problem-millions-more-wind-turbine-blades-destined-for-landfills-near-you/ Or do we just ignore it hoping it will go away.
That’s our fear out here where this infrastructure is being installed. Who is responsible for the cleanup? Here in Australia wind and solar is being installed on prime agricultural land. Is it to be buried here too? Australia has a total of only 6% arable land. Such insanity.
China will need to expand the gulag of forced labor compounds making solar cell components just to keep up with the orders. Will Russia send in captured Ukrainians to help fill the demand?
The way things are going, Ukraine may supply captured Russians…
Same deal in Oz with the taxpayer slushfunding the shift from a dispatchable hub and spoke grid to spaghetti and meatballs unreliables-
Federal government will cover cost of connecting massive new Queensland wind farm to national grid (msn.com)
Privatize the gains and socialize the costs is the name of the game and you get to brag how cheap the power is with your dumping practices. The fallacy of composition problem isn’t any individual generator’s concern. Just the power consumer/taxpayer in the long run.