Michael Brune
It’s not every day that you’ll find me agreeing with an executive from BP, but Katrina Landis, the CEO of BP’s Alternative Energy division, was exactly right when she said last month that it would be a mistake to allow the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) to expire at the end of this year: “It’s a really compelling case of the government incentivizing the development of an industry … that is actually really working.”
Congress has already missed multiple chances to extend the PTC, which has solid support in the House but has struck out in the Senate. There’s still hope that a bipartisan effort will rectify the situation—after all, the wind blows in both red states and blue states (actually, the red states might have an edge there), and the wind industry employs thousands of American workers—whose jobs would be directly threatened by letting the PTC expire.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Because we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot by putting the brakes on both a growing industry and an important alternative energy source. According to the American Wind Industry Association, U.S. manufacturing of wind turbines has grown twelvefold over the last six years. Iowa already generates 20 percent of its power from wind, and the Department of Energy has estimated that our entire country could get 20 percent of its power from wind energy alone by 2030. And that’s a conservative estimate.
Fossil-fuel supporters in Congress and elsewhere (who tend to be the same politicians that receive fossil-fuel support in the form of campaign cash) have done their best to demonize renewable energy lately, but their rhetoric is flying in the face of the facts. The value of solar photovoltaic installations in the U.S. grew from $5 billion in 2010 to $8.4 billion in 2011. Solar power is a growing sector, and that growth is attracting investors as varied as Warren Buffet, Google, and Bank of America.
And it’s not just private investors that are voting with their dollars. The Army Corps of Engineers, that citadel of progressivism, announced that it plans to award $7 billion in contracts for large-scale renewable and alternative energy projects to help the Army reach its goal of having 25 percent of its energy come from renewable sources by 2025.
Wind and solar energy aren’t just the future—they are the growing, vibrant “right now” of our energy economy, and their success will breed even more success—if we let it. Alternatively, we could go on disproportionately subsidizing fossil fuels that harm our health, national security, and environment and add insult to injury by actively discouraging development of the energy sectors that will eventually allow us to leave fossil fuels behind.
I’m sure most of us—maybe even some oil-company executives—can agree on which is the wiser course.
How about this idea to help wake people up:
CALL FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SATIRE VIDEOS!
$100 for each of the first five videos selected
$25 for additional videos selected
DEADLINE: JUNE 30, 2012
More and more people realize that we have to move away from fossil fuels and
towards renewable energy in order to stop damaging our climate and our planet and
our future. However, we are not speaking out loudly enough to encourage investment
in new beneficial technologies, and specially wind power. False arguments are raised
against the development of our plentiful wind resources.
Laughter doesn’t just make us happy – it connects and energizes us. If you go to
http://windustrious.org you will see links to some very funny videos. The targets of
these pieces of satire are the opponents, and delayers, of our transition to wind
power and other forms of renewable energy. The videos make us see how silly the
opposition really is!
This is a call for additional satire videos for the Windustrious.org website. They will
help build the call for action in fighting climate change. Suggestions of subject
matter are listed below the three movies already on display. You may be able to
think of other scenarios worthy of ridicule.
The duration of the videos should be from 30 seconds to 5 minutes in length and in
DVD data format. Please include contact information including: your name, phone
number, email address and street address with your submission. More than one
video may be submitted. Submissions should be mailed to:
Sarah Taylor, Windustrious, 2894 Meadowbrook Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.
$100 will be paid for each of the first five videos put up on the Windustrious site,
with authorship acknowledged. The authors of additional videos added to the site will
each receive $25. The deadline for video submission is June 30th, 2012.
For more information contact: sarah@windustrious.org.
Excellent video on wind enrgey! Wind enrgey is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The advantages of wind enrgey are not new, wind power has been harnessed from a long time Wind enrgey represents nearly 5% of the US electrical generation and is targeted to reach 20% in the future. Pacific Crest Transformers is a transformer company that works in the wind enrgey sector. Visit the Pacific Crest Transformers website for more
It’s no secret that energy costs are skyrocketing, just ask any homeowner! But, is this always a bad thing? Perhaps not, if you consider that not only are people taking steps towards energy conservation, but innovators are latching onto this problem with a goal of finding new energy sources.