TAXPAYER ALERT: Big Wind Urging Congress for Yet Another Bailout

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 11:03 AM

TAXPAYER ALERT: Big Wind Urging Congress for Yet Another Bailout

By Mary Kay Barton

“Industrial wind can NEVER provide modern reliable, dispatchable, baseload power; has cost far more jobs than it creates; and is destroying the very environment they claim they wish to save.”

Taxpayers beware! While you’ve been busy just trying to make ends meet, wondering why the cost of everything is going up, and how your children and grandchildren will ever pay the mounting $18 TRILLION dollar national debt – the wind industry lobbyists’ group, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), just sent Congress a letter seeking the extension of the federal, taxpayer-funded wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

The list of signers to AWEA’s letter include rent-seeking industries and ‘green’ groups who’ve all benefitted by tapping into taxpayers’ wallets via the Wind PTC (aka: Pork-To-Cronies). It certainly isn’t hard to figure out why these corporations pay many $Millions of dollars to run national TV advertising campaigns geared at convincing crony-politicians to vote to continue these TAXES on American citizens.

AWEA’a letter is typical of wind industry propaganda – making specious claims about jobs and pollution reduction, without providing a shred of evidence to PROVE any of their claims. It appears AWEA is hoping that Congressional officials are “too stupid” to understand what energy-literate citizens nationwide know: Industrial wind can NEVER provide modern reliable, dispatchable, baseload power; has cost far more jobs than it creates; and is destroying the very environment they claim they wish to save.

The reality: After 22+ years of picking U.S. taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ pockets, industrial wind has NOT significantly reduced CO2 emissions, nor has it shuttered any conventional power plants – anywhere. The $Trillions spent on these “green” boondoggles to date however, have significantly added to the $18+ TRILLION dollar debt that our children and grandchildren will have to bear.

AWEA’s own statements of years and decades past can be used against them. Thirty-one years ago, a study coauthored by AWEA stated:

The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D. [1]

Our government should NOT be in the business of picking and choosing the winners and losers in the energy marketplace – while assaulting the very citizens they are forcing to pay for this ‘green’ energy scam. It’s time for government to get out of the way and let the markets work! The best solutions will rise to the top of their own accord because they will provide modern power at the best prices – which will assure maintaining the reliable, affordable power that has made America great.

Citizens nation-wide have woken up to this massive ‘green’ energy scam, and many have sent letters to Congress (like the one below).

You can join the fight by contacting your representatives and urging them to do the right thing – Protect American consumers, taxpayers and ratepayers – END Wind Welfare (#EndWindWelfare)!

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[1] American Wind Energy Association, et al. (1983) Quoted in Renewable Energy Industry, Joint Hearing before the Subcommittees of the Committee on Energy and Commerce et al., House of Representatives, 98^th Cong., 1^st sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983), p. 52.

New York State Citizens' Letter:

Citizens’ Plea - DO NOT REINSTATE

the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC)

Dear New York State Representatives:

We, the undersigned, join millions of U.S. taxpayers & ratepayers nationwide in urging you and your colleagues to eliminate the 22-year old wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

You should know by now that wind energy is a NET technical, economic and environmental loser. Why would we want to waste $Billions more of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on a net loser?

The addition of industrial wind in the U.S. has not reduced our need to maintain and build reliable generation, nor does it add materially to our job force. Because wind energy is so diffuse, unreliable and volatile, it can never supply the firm capacity modern power demands, but instead creates unprecedented industrial sprawl - responsible for massive Habitat Fragmentation (cited as the main reason for species decline), devastated civility in targeted townships, and lost rural heritage as landscapes are forever-changed.

Renewable energy tax policy has also fostered a generation of developers bent on sticking turbines on every free acre that has transmission access, no matter who is in the way. It is simply unconscionable that, to date, no U.S. elected official has called for appropriate health studies to be done to protect the health, safety, and welfare of U.S. citizens who are suffering as a result of ending up stuck within the sprawling footprints of industrial wind factories. As a result, it’s no surprise that more than twelve active lawsuits are pending against wind projects in as many states, with many more sure to follow.

The issues surrounding wind power expansion also impact energy prices and disrupt otherwise functional markets. The PTC provides project owners with a significant out-of-market revenue source [1], which invokes predatory pricing practices that unfairly harm the economics of reliable generators. There is no justification for a government program that manipulates otherwise healthy, competitive businesses.

After 22-years of tax credits, the business of big wind is not about energy production. It’s about tax avoidance. Warren Buffet recently reminded us that wind investment makes no sense without the handouts from taxpayers. Wind energy will never be competitive with the price of the fuel it saves, and would not exist but for the PTC.

After more than two decades, the wind industry is well situated to stand on its own without the PTC. It is unreasonable to continue to force taxpayers to support it. Your constituents know it, and you should, too.

This is why we respectfully request that Congress resist any temptation to reinstate the expired PTC or associated investment tax credit (ITC).

Respectfully submitted,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[1] At 2.3¢/kWh, the subsidy's pre-tax value (3.5¢/kWh) equals, or exceeds the wholesale price of power in much of the country.

Article Link: https://www.masterresource.org/american-wind-energy-association/33152/

Big Wind Payoffs ARE ‘Taxpayer Money’

0 comments Posted by Unknown at 10:57 AM

Big Wind Payoffs ARE ‘Taxpayer Money’

New York State taxpayers and ratepayers in the GLOW (Genesee, Livingston, Orleans, & Wyoming Counties) region need to be made aware of incorrect assertions made by Orangeville Supervisor, Susan May, in her recent letter - especially since Orleans County is now being targeted by Big Wind developers.

Ms. May was absolutely WRONG when she stated that recent projects completed by Invenergy in Orangeville were “done without taxpayer money." Any payments the Town of Orangeville receives from Invenergy are a pittance of the recycled taxpayer and ratepayer dollars that Big Wind has first picked from the pockets of all U.S. taxpayers and New York State ratepayers.

The ONLY reason that Invenergy's 58-turbine project in Orangeville was built at all was because the federal Wind Production TAX Credit (PTC) - a TAX that ALL U.S. taxpayers are forced to pay ($.023 per kilowatt-hour) - was added as pork to the Fiscal Cliff Deal in the wee hours of the morning, December 31, 2012. Without the PTC, Invenergy would NOT have built the Orangeville project. (See: http://www.masterresource.org/2013/09/new-york-wind-wars/)

In fact, generous subsidies and incentives are what enable the industrial wind industry to exist, as they make up as much as 80% of the cost of these projects. Thus, it’s certainly not hard to figure out why Big Energy corporations pay many $Millions of dollars to run national TV advertising campaigns geared at convincing crony-politicians to vote to continue these TAXES on American citizens. (See: http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/siemens-ad-us-taxpayers/)

Industrial Wind is part and parcel of the UN’s Agenda 21 scheme, and is nothing but a transfer of our wealth, to rich, multi-national corporations – many of whom have NOT paid any taxes in the U.S. in years (ie: GE, FPL, etc). As Warren Buffett candidly admitted, “We get tax credits if we build lots of windfarms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

The driving force behind the existence of the wind industry are their claims that wind will significantly reduce CO2 and thereby stop Global Warming. Again, reality tells a different story.

30+ years into enabling the wind industry to exist, and there’s been Over $1.7 Trillion Spent, and ZERO CO2 abated (and that cost does NOT include all the civil and environmental devastation caused by sprawling wind factories). Aptly stated by Manhattan Institute scholar, Robert Bryce, “Wind turbines are Climate-Change Scarecrows.”

FACT: Industrial wind cannot replace our reliable, dispatchable baseload generators because wind has virtually NO firm capacity (specified amounts of power on demand). Thus, wind needs constant "shadow capacity" from our reliable, conventional generators – a redundancy which Big Wind CEO, Patrick Jenevein admitted “turns ratepayers and taxpayers into double-payers for the same product.”

ONE single 450 MW gas-fired combined cycle generating unit located at New York City -- where the power is needed in New York State -- operating at only 60% capacity factor, would provide MORE electricity than all of New York State’s wind factories combined, at about 1/4 of the capital costs – WITHOUT all the negative civil, economic, environmental, human health, and property value impacts that sprawling wind factories and all the transmission lines that must be added to New York City create.

Wasting money on the volatile, unreliability of wind has contributed to New York State earning the dubious distinction of having some of the highest electricity rates in the United States – a whopping 53% above the national average, which ultimately hurts the poor the most. A NYS resident using 6,500 kWh of electricity annually will pay about $400 more per year for their electricity than if our electricity prices were at the national average. That’s over $3.2 BILLION dollars New York State residents will not be able to spend in the rest of the economy.

It is our children and grandchildren who will be saddled with the $Trillions of dollars the ‘green’ scam has piled onto our national debt – all while Big Wind destroys the very environment, and the townships, which they claim they wish to save.

Consider this stunning contrast on display in Wyoming County and ask yourself -- Who will our children and grandchildren remember most fondly:

~ William Pryor Letchworth - a man with the foresight, wisdom and love for his fellow man to leave us the legacy of the natural beauty of Letchworth State Park - “The Grand Canyon of the East,” on the east side of the Warsaw Valley;

OR…

~ Elected officials – short-sighted men and women who threw their neighbors and the natural beauty of Wyoming County under the bus and industrialized five towns on the west side of the Warsaw Valley with useless wind turbines – a major contributor to the $multi-Trillion-dollar national debt?

As the song goes: “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…”

Mary Kay Barton

Tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/qa2mk5h

BATR RealPolitik Newsletter - Another Green Energy Fraud - November 20, 2014

0 comments Posted by SARTRE at 8:01 AM

Read the Newsletter

SunEdison, TerraForm to Acquire First Wind for $2.4 Billion

0 comments Posted by SARTRE at 1:52 AM

SunEdison Inc. (SUNE) and its power-plant holding company, TerraForm Power Inc. (TERP), agreed to buy closely held First Wind Holdings Inc. for $2.4 billion, expanding the types of renewable-energy projects it can develop.

The acquisition will give Maryland Heights, Missouri-based SunEdison a foothold in the U.S. wind market, the company said in a statement today. SunEdison now expects to install as much as 2.3 gigawatts of capacity next year, up from a range of 1.6 gigawatts to 1.8 gigawatts.

The addition of First Wind, based in Boston, is “transformative,” accellerating the companies’ “engine” for renewable project development, Ahmad Chatila, president and chief executive officer of SunEdison, said in an interview.

“The reason why we’re doing it is really it doubles our served available market,” Chatila said. “Now we have combined with the best team in wind.”

SunEdison, which won’t change its name to reflect the new strategy, hopes to capitalize on the growth opportunities in the global wind energy market. Wind power in the U.S., where First Wind’s project development has been located, is expected to grow 15 percent next year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts.

SunEdison’s shares rose as much as 6 percent in after-market trading.

The purchase, which is expected to close in the first quarter, will consist of a $1.9 billion upfront payment and $510 million dependent on First Wind completing backlog projects.

’Packaging Electrons’

TerraForm will add 521 megawatts of First Wind projects to its portfolio under the deal, with 1.6 gigawatts of projects expected to be developed by SunEdison and dropped down into TerraForm in 2016 and 2017, the companies said in the statement.

The transaction “checks all the boxes,” TerraForm Chief Executive Officer Carlos Domenech said in an interview. “What First Wind does for TerraForm is very much what SunEdison does on the solar side performing as a sponsor.”

TerraForm will add 4.6 gigawatts of installs between wind and solar by the end of 2017 after the deal, including the 3.1 gigawatts already planned with SunEdison.

“We are in the business of packaging electrons into long-term contracts,” Domenech said. “Wind is a great asset class and we see tremendous growth potential. For us this is a logical expansion into renewables.”

The company expects to look into acquiring other types of renewable energy projects, Domenech said, and is considering hydroelectric power, hybrid power systems and residential, commercial and industrial solar power assets.

Yieldco

TerraForm is a yieldco that went public in July. Yieldcos are an increasingly popular way to hold renewable energy assets. They let developers raise capital at lower costs by selling completed projects to their yieldcos and using the proceeds to fund new projects.

The purchase of First Wind is expected to be immediately accretive to TerraForm Power, delivering $72.5 million in unlevered cash available for distribution next year, according to the statement.

TerraForm raised its 2015 distribution guidance to $214 million and its dividend guidance to $1.30 a share, up 44 percent from its current 90-cent rate.

Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch acted as lead financial advisor to TerraForm in connection with the First Wind acquisition and lead structuring agent on the drop down warehouse credit facility. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to First Wind.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tina Davis in New York at tinadavis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net Iain Wilson, Keith Gosman

Source

SunEdison, TerraForm to buy First Wind for $2.4 billion

0 comments Posted by SARTRE at 1:41 AM

Solar company SunEdison Inc. and unit TerraForm Power Inc. said they would buy First Wind for $2.4 billion to enter the U.S. wind power market.

SunEdison’s shares rose 6.6 percent to $17.70, while TerraForm shares rose 1.2 percent to $26.15 in after-market trading.

The deal comprises $1.9 billion in upfront payment and $510 million in earn-outs, the companies said.

Boston-based First Wind is operating or building renewable energy projects in the Northeast, the West and Hawaii, with a combined capacity of nearly 1,300 megawatts — enough to power more than 425,000 homes each year.

First Wind has been a major player in developing wind farms in Maine, with sites active and planned across northern, western and eastern Maine. It is a frequent target for environmentalists and regulators, and counts among its top executives a former high-ranking Baldacci administration official, Kurt Adams, who now sits on the University of Maine board of trustees.

The company is involved in at least six wind power projects in Maine.

SunEdison raised its 2015 installation forecast to 2.1-2.3 gigawatts from 1.6-1.8 gigawatts . TerraForm increased its 2015 dividend forecast to $1.30 per share from 90 cents.

TerraForm was created by SunEdison to own and operate its solar power plants. TerraForm went public in July.

The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2015, the companies said.

SunEdison’s share in the total consideration consists of an upfront payment of $1 billion and the earn-out portion.

TerraForm Power will acquire First Wind’s operating portfolio for an enterprise value of $862 million.

Source

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