Report - The Energy Collective: More Realistic Costs for Wind Energy
Conclusions
According
to the American Tradition Institute, there are numerous hidden costs to
wind power, including the cost of back-up power, the cost of extra
transmission, and the cost of favorable tax benefits. And, the
assumption of a 30-year life used in government calculations for wind
power is optimistic, based on reports from European countries regarding
the useful service lives of their wind turbines.
Including
these hidden costs in calculating the cost of wind energy increases its
cost by a factor of 1.5 or 2, depending on the power system that is
used as back-up. The Institute calculates that ratepayers are paying an
extra $8.5 to $10 billion a year for wind energy compared to natural
gas-fired generation, and this will only increase as more capacity is
added. Add to this the more than $12 billion that the American taxpayer
is paying for the ‘one-year’ extension for the PTC, and one can see that
the wind industry is a boondoggle at the expense of taxpayers and
ratepayers, that is making the US economy less competitive.
Read the entire report at:
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