“you shall not crucify tax payers and energy users upon a cross of gold”
Often repeated, rarely analyzed and our request last year for authentication from one of the lobbyists never responded to. Sort of like the old saw of a few years back “Iowa Teachers 41st in teachers pay nationally” . . . repeated by “news”papers and many a Republican legislator, but never examined.
Both arguably comprise “gee wiz” bunk of no objective import to solving energy issues or education issues.
Because the wind bag men are unresponsive we can hypothesize that the 20% figure refers to the subsidized build up of an undependable potential energy source, relative to a constrained (by regulation) but more efficient (dollars to BTU’s ) alternatives. If other sources are held down by stupid regulations (pretty much all other sources except solar, which is encouraged by stupid regulations) the availability of energy to sustain or expand the Iowa economy ( I presume a goal) is not efficiently or reliably present. So the figure is arguably meaningless.
Because of the undependability of wind generation we have doubts that the 20% figure can be defended as the amount actually delivered statewide for more than a few hours a day or (cumulatively) a few days out of a year. Now we can accept that on a good day such a percentage or, conceivably, higher is possible . . . but from what we know about wind in Iowa . . . not constantly or reliably.
Real reliable capacity is still needed and to be reliable the generating facilities must be pre-built and running . . . boilers and turbines are not brought online momentarily. Accordingly wind provides no real 20% saving or 20% obviation of Iowa’s energy capacity needs.
Consider this analogy: Joe necessarily relies on automotive transportation. Joe owns three cars, one of them, “car C,” runs on a special fuel. Yet potentially it represents over thirty-three percent of Joe”s transportation capacity on a good day. But it is so finicky and the fuel only intermittently available such that it cannot be driven very often. It is no daily driver and Joe really needs Car “A” for business because of its features. Car “B” uses a fuel that is reliable and represents the serious capacity to take the pressure off of “A.” In other words “C” is only potential transportation and really meaningless as such because Joe can only drive one at a time and he must have and maintain at least one for reliability. Car “C” is essentially a toy. It is not seriously 33% or even 20% of Joe’s transportation capacity.
Unless we can see auditable day to day figures verifying that the percentage the wind bag men repeat endlessly is an average daily generation — transmitted used and depended on — then we suspect it to be a huckster figure used by the lobbyists to abuse tax payers.
And the manipulative use by the lobbyists of the statement “wind energy powers the equivalent of a million homes” meant to plant the thought: “gee wiz, if we don’t continue to subsidize wind, a million homes will be without power.” Are those homes out of power on a calm day or a less than optimal day, or long stretched thereof? Of course not. Insidiously It may even be cheaper for “customers” (a term used advisedly as the tax payments establishing the “market” are imposed rather than selectively chosen) to have the things dead in the wind. In some states utilities are forced to buy wind energy at an above market price, which utilities of course pass on to end users.
And as regards the “we are spreading the wealth” actually self-serving non-sense put out by the wind lobbyists in Iowa that no Republican legislator should fall for: “Almost 3,000 utility-scale turbines in Iowa generate lease payments to landowners worth $12.5 million every year.” Is that what this is about . . . generate tax subsidized lease payments to people who could make money on the land in other ways !? Utilities are not mounting those multi-million dollar babies in culverts or tree lines. As much as tax favored corn ethanol is a boondoggle, it may be a more efficient tax dollar boondoggle per BTU actually produced than tax subsidies and mandates regarding wind power.
As regards the teacher salary debate a few years ago, I bring it up because the statistics used then were effective at propagandizing legislators and the public. Readers may remember the weepy “Iowa teachers rank 41st in the nation in compensation” that was bandied about. The more appropriate economic analysis was that Iowa teachers were within a few hundred dollars of the top state in the plain’s states region, the most relevant cost of living comparative. R Mall
Roger, your commentary is great. It makes excellent points that wind poroponents and most media want to be kept undisclosed lest voters are exposed to differing points of view and thus tempted to decide the merits of the issue themselves. Your car analogy, I believe, is both fair and illustrative. One point left out in this piece, however, is the blight upon the landscape which wind energy imposes. Our “friends” in the enviro movement have been loud and shrill when any discussion about drilling for oil in the desolate areas of the ANWAR in Alaska is brought up. How terrible it would be to ruin this “pristine” wilderness with those ugly oil rigs. Has anyone noticed how the heretofore “pristine” plains and prairie of this nation are being ravaged by the placing of scores, even hundreds of “windmills”? Enviros…take a look at such areas as parts of western Iowa or around Bloomington, IL.! It’s getting harder to hide your monumental hypocrisy.