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US Firms Race Fiscal Cliff To Install Wind Turbines
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that U.S. energy companies are racing to install wind turbines before a federal tax credit expires at the end of this year which could be lost as Congress struggles with new legislation to avoid the 'fiscal cliff.' 'There's a lot of rushing right now to get projects completed by the end of the year,' says Rob Gramlich, senior vice president at the American Wind Energy Association. 'There's a good chance we could get this extension, it is very hard to predict, but the industry is not making bets on the Congress getting it done,' Even if there is an extension there is likely to be a significant curtailment of wind installations in 2013. From 1999 to 2004, Congress allowed the wind energy production tax credit to expire three times, each time retroactively extending it several months after the expiration deadline had passed, but wind energy companies say they need longer time frames to negotiate deals to sell the power they generate. 'Even if the tax credit is extended, our new construction plans likely will be ramped back substantially in 2013 compared with the last few years,' says Paul Copleman. 'So much time has passed without certainty that a normal one-year extension would not be a game-changer for our 2013 build plans.'"
All this hot wind about tax credits... I think it will break soon. And this whole thing will blow over.
Rent seeking, meet regulatory capture.
A perfect reflection of the people that voted for them.
Actually, it demonstrably isn't. Some reasons why:
1. Gerrymandering. For example, the party that got the most votes won't hold the most seats in Congress come the next term.
2. This is a lame duck session. So it's actually a reflection of the electorate from 2 years ago, not the current electorate.
3. The "money primary", where candidates must impress potential donors to even have a chance of impressing the electorate, ensures that proposals that might hurt large donors are never even considered.
There are many opinions widely held by the American public that are nowhere near actually getting through Congress. For instance, a majority of Americans would approve the federal legalization of marijuana, but such a proposal has never even come close to getting a floor vote in Congress.
I am officially gone from
With their own torches that they'll use to set fire to stuff, so they'll have an excuse to arrest the lot.
We are all God's parents.
Yes, I agree. Sequestration is the more accurate term that was used when the idea was first proposed.
However: the 24 hour media engine needs it's narrative, both major parties need something that "went wrong" that can conveniently be blamed on the other, and the wealthy really want to keep their excessively low effective tax rates(not that we're fixing capital gains). This stupid "emergency" is a natural consequence of a bunch of people with something to gain.
That is not to say the particulars of the "debate" are all completely OK. For example, those in congress who wish block the debt ceiling again can indeed crash the bond market, if they push it too far.
But is hydroelectricity worth a dam?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If the "torch-bearing mob" you're referring to was Occupy Wall Street, they didn't have any torches or pitchforks, they had signs and chants and meetings which clearly presented no physical threat to the banks. The New York police responded to them by:
- pepper-spraying them for the heinous crime of walking down a sidewalk
- beating them with batons
- In one case, running a guy over with a motorcycle, arresting him for being in the way, and then denying medical treatment of his broken leg
- Pushing them into the street and then arresting them for jaywalking
- In policing a planned march over the Brooklyn bridge, waited until as many as possible were on the bridge, then blocked both exits and arresting everyone in between
- Put an end to the protest by barging in at 3 AM to a public park, beating and kicking the sleeping people who didn't move fast enough, and destroying all the personal property that they could get their hands on
- In the aftermath, some of the people known to have been protesting were fired from their jobs
So that's why people avoid protest movements in the US: If it has a chance of changing something, it will be violently suppressed. In one of the related protests in other cities, the police repeatedly pepper-sprayed an 82-year-old woman who hadn't gotten out of the way fast enough, and ended up killing an Iraq War veteran (probably accidentally, but still).
I am officially gone from
http://www.ewea.org/blog/2012/12/study-on-turbine-lifespan-just-more-anti-wind-propaganda/
The report (link to report proper is in the page linked above) was put together by "The Global Warming Policy Foundation" - a known organization of AGW denialists. It speaks volumes that the only sites that reference the report as an authoritative source are other AGW-denying blogs and websites. Combined with the fact that the report you cite flies contrary to dozens of other reports and technical analyses, you should be really quite suspicious about an ulterior agenda.
=Smidge=