The goal was to make wind politically "toxic,"...

[badtoworse]

100. I guess we'll have to disagree.

First of all, you're correct in that I'm not convinced that climate change is the crisis it's been portrayed as. I read studies on both sides of the issue and can't help noticing that people who cite conflicting data or question the accepted wisdom about climate change are either ridiculed or ignored by their colleagues. In that respect, climate change has become as much of a political debate as it is a scientific one, perhaps more so.

I don't buy the current claims that climate change is responsible for the severe weather events we've had recently. The deadliest hurricane in our history occured 113 years ago. Hurricanes in the 1930's changed the coast of Long Island and Andrew did major damage to south Florida in 1992. Tornado damage is nothing new - we had severe twisters in the mid-west for as long as I can remember. One of the worst blizzrds the northeast ever saw occured in 1717. NYC's worst blizzard was likely in 1889.

Even if I was 100% convinced about climate change, I still wouldn't support continued PTC's for wind. For one thing, I don't think wind is a particularly good technology. Having to do maintenance in a small nacelle 100 meters in the air is problematic, especially if you need a big crane (expensive rental) to change out a gearbox or replace a blade. Noise and flicker are issues that at best will reduce the value of neighboring property and at worst, will directly impact the neighbors. USF&G estimates that as many as a a half million birds are killed each year by wind turbines. Wind has plenty of externalities - did you include the dead birds and reduced property values in your estimate of wind subsidies? I assume you are familiar with grid stability issues - wind is a variable, uncontrollable resource and still needs turbines on AGC to match generation to load.

If we out to limit carbon, we shouldn't do it by annointing a particular technology with a subsidy. We should impose a carbon tax or a cap and trade system and let wind fend for itself. The wind industry needs to consolidate around 3 or 4 turbine manufacturers (like the combustion turbine industry) which should help lower costs further. If we keep the PTC's in place, there is less incentive to drive costs down. I'm not sure we really need to legislate carbon reduction - because of the lower cost of gas, MATS, CCR and the NSPS for CO2, about 60 GW of coal plants have or will have retired in the next few years. That has already lowered CO2 emissions substantially and further reductions will occur in the future.

I'm not against renewables. In fact, I actually like distributed solar with battery storage as a technology. Combine it with electric vehicles and smart grid technology and you have a flexible, stable platform.

As far as the subsidies go, I looked at your links and I find the approach taken in calculating the value of subsidies to be ludicrous. The cost of defending the Persian Gulf is a subsidy? Accelerated depreciation is a subsidy? Sorry, but I don't accept that the difference between a puntive tax on revenue and the current tax code constitutes a subsidy. Those are very warped, biased determinations as to what is a subsidy done by people with their own agenda. In any case, I assign about as much credence to people with agendas as you do. I'll consider what they have to say, but in the end, I make up my own mind.