I have an op-ed
online in USA Today today entitled “America should learn from Europe on wind power.”
In it, I outline how Europe has begun to come to its senses about the
unsustainable cost of wind energy:
However, wind
power is expensive, and the growing size of the industry has meant that
subsidies – and energy bills – have surged. The German subsidy is paid for by a
surcharge on household electricity bills. The growth in wind power meant that
in January the surcharge increased to over 5 cents (euro) per kilowatt hour,
representing 14% of all electricity bills.
In Germany,
Chancellor Angela Merkel, realizing that wind power is economically
unsustainable, has proposed capping the subsidy until the end of 2014 and
capping further rises to 2.5%, with the probability of further significant reform
after the federal elections this year. It’s a similar story in Spain, where
subsidies have been cut so much that the chairman of the country´s Association
of Renewable-Energy Producers said recently: “Spain’s government is trying to
smash the renewable-energy sector through legislative modifications.”
As it happens,
President Obama has repeatedly said we should look to Spain and Germany as
examples of how to handle renewable power. Indeed, and he should apply this
thinking to the loan guarantee application for the Cape Wind project:….To ReadMore…..
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