Harvesting the taxpayer;
What hasn’t received national attention is the stunning taxpayer subsidized profits the developer is expecting to reap from the [Cape Cod] project. A study by the Massachusetts based Beacon Hill Institute found that the proposed $1 billion dollars in subsidies from the project would contribute to a nearly 25% return on equity by investors – more than twice the average historical for return for all corporations. Add taxpayers to that list of groups opposed to the project.
h/t Manotick
Anytime government gets involved taxpayers get it in the neck!
Gerrym
Giant Fans aka Bird Choppers either way we are going to make some investors very happy.
Our hydro rate up by 11% per annum for several years to pay for going green!
Where is Layton those HST fighters?
Is that old lady up north heating her home this winter going to invest in those green stocks?
Who’s going to be dumb enough to build multi-million dollar giant fans in the Atlantic without money up-front AND a giant kickback in the back door too?
It isn’t like they are ever going to generate enough power to pay the maintenance costs, right?
Same deal going up in Lake Erie down by Nanticoke. Look it up on the web, it’ll make your head explode. Your tax dollars at work paying off friends of Dalton.
“Harvesting the taxpayer”, what an appropriate, unfortunate term.
The winners of this insane game will be the governments who stall the longest. They’ll save themselves the cost of green subsidies, have money to develop traditional energy after the mania ends and sell energy at premium prices to green energy districts. If, through the genius of invention, a cost efficient green energy source is discovered the slow pokes still win, just by waiting.
Does Dalton have friends in the massive Samsung corporation?
http://windenergy7.com/
Massive Wind Farms are antiquated thinking and silly in the extreme.
With modern technology, wind gen belongs on your garage roof.
That way there are no stepping up and later step down and line losses. Not to mention the power outages that are a certain feature of long exposed power lines.
Add to that the cost of construction labour, the costs of towers and the costs of high tension lines and transformers at both ends with step down xfmrs at each residence.
Direct from your garage roof to the battery pack is far more efficient.
Giant Fans in PEI never seem to be running. Only once in 5 trips. 50 Fans to service that little Island? Just how efficient are they? And the noise is said to be causing health problems?
Wind energy was abandoned when more efficient, reliable sources arrived like…..electricity, internal combustion……
Wind was harnessed directly for pumping water and grinding grain…..
Water another venerable source, initially exploited the massive Niagara resource….was flexible able to met demand on short notice….but with few exceptions the best resources are developed….except for a few in the US…frustrated by the insane Sierra idiots who also want to rip out the existing dams.
We din’t abandon wind because we ran outa wind anymore than the STONE AGE ended because we ran outa rocks.
This is another enviro-wacko idea. Was OK on the farm where we needed only enough power for three or four 25 watt lamps.
University of Minnesota finds that the corn ethanol enviro-fantasy is another, well; fantasy.
http://www.startribune.com/local/38839542.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ
McGuinty’s own agency, the Ont. Power Authority issued a report in 2007. The OPA concluded: “Wind and solar power will never be more than a niche supplier of power in Ontario.” This quote is from a National Post story of Mar 05 2010.
This report also states that the required gas fired plants, to backup the turbines would emit more CO2 gases then saved by the switch to wind.
It also listed preferred alternatives for future energy needs excluding nuclear. These included northern Ont. hydro developments, and most interesting, simply purchasing hydro from Quebec and Manitoba.
The agency seems to be saying that massive wind development won’t lower CO2 emissions, will be more expensive than any other alternative. So why exactly are we proceeding with the wind mills and the accompanying risks of health problems, polluted landscapes and ruined agricultural lands?
McGuinty’s mind is made up and he doesn’t want facts to get in the way.
Here is something interesting,wiki the Grace Commission,this was during the 1980s you can bet things have not improved since.I wonder what are chances of a similar initiative here in Canada.
“Anytime government gets involved taxpayers get it in the neck!”
Don’t the other energy industries (oil, gas, coal, nuclear, etc.) in the US and Canada also continue to receive significant tax-funded subsidies and incentives for research, development, start-up, and/or operations? For example, I understand the Saskatchewan government currently offers incentives for petroleum R&D to attract private sector investment in that province.
What do folks here think about that? It seems to me that if tax dollars are acceptable for subsidizing oil and gas companies, why not also for companies specializing in emerging technologies like wind and solar?
Davenport over the life of the project, the mine I’m working at will pay approximately $1 billion dollars in direct taxation, royalties to the crown and payroll taxes for the many highly paid employees that work there. What we want is for the government to set the rules then keep out of our way and let us work. We don’t want subsidies, we want a consistent regulatory environment.
Japan figured that crony-capitalism was the best way to go, but for some reason whenever the government decides who will win or lose the “investment capital” the taxpayers take it in the neck. Stay out of our way, let us work, we’ll supply the power and the highways and the farm equipment and infrastructure that feed the cities and the steel that builds the cities, and there’ll be enough wealth left over that the wilfully indolent will be obese instead of starving to death the way they do elsewhere around the globe.
What do folks here think about that?
We’re opposed to subsidies to oil and coal companies, duh.
These are profitable industries that should have no need for subsidies. They also shouldn’t be hampered with unreasonable or destructive regulations.
Davenport:
“What do folks here think about that? It seems to me that if tax dollars are acceptable for subsidizing oil and gas companies, why not also for companies specializing in emerging technologies like wind and solar”?
The problem is wind power, far from an emerging technology, was abandoned in the 19th century for more reliable sources of energy, oil, gas etc.
Wind power, up to 4 x as expensive as conventional forms of electrical power, is very inefficient. The wind doesn’t blow every day, something our great grandparents were familiar with. There are enough studies from Denmark, Germany Spain and other countries, to show that wind power is not a feasable solution. In these countries, government subsidies for wind development have reached the limit. Governments have concluded that it simply does not work. It is no accident that many European companies are now plying their wares in Ont. Dalton McGuinty’s is one of the last governments around that still believe in massive public subsidy for wind development.
“These are profitable industries that should have no need for subsidies.”
Fair enough. But then why do folks here so enthusiastically condemn wind and solar subsidies, yet withhold similar criticisms about — indeed, celebrate — the burgeoning Saskatchewan oil industry (for example), which also currently profits from taxpayer-funded subsidies?
What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, no?
mikeg
[…..Here is something interesting,wiki the Grace Commission,this was during the 1980s you can bet things have not improved since.I wonder what are chances of a similar initiative here in Canada.]
Thanks…..I didn’t know that….I can now honestly say I learned something today. I always learn something but most days I cannot specify what.
Here’s a case of Manitoba subsidizing wind turbines from a company in California, home of the Governator, close friend of former MB premier and current Canadian Ambassador to the USA Gary Doer:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/St-Joseph-wind-farm-construction-to-begin-immediately-Selinger-88835097.html
MB, having great a hydroelectric system, buying wind turbines is like selling coal to Newcastle.
But we are going one better in Saskatchewan. We’ve committed 1.4 million to studying battery storage of wind power. I guess no one has tried that yet, I wonder if the europeans with all of their wind projects have thought of this one. Not that we are scientifically challenged in Sask. but this is 1.4 down the drain right behind SaskPower’s clean coal project.
I haven’t heard many posters supporting subsidies – arts, oil, political parties, or any other special cause. As I see it, subsidies cost taxpayers to much, skew the market and are often handed out as political favors.
Davenport @7:36 There is a difference between deferring taxation or offsetting the exploration costs for unproven areas against the profits generated in proven fields and spending government money to try to resuscitate a system that our ancestors largely left behind centuries ago because they couldn’t depend upon it.
One is based upon “we have up-front costs that we know we will be able to repay, let us repay those costs before the full royalty and taxation regime applies”. The other is based upon “we have a use for public money that hasn’t worked anywhere else but if you give us enough money then we’ll all have jobs and you can promote that you support green energy and jobs and we can sell stock.”
There are some in the mining and oil and gas industry that are more interested in mining the investors than are interested in mining the ore (inflating the stock price and making their money off of the stock sales). I don’t know of anyone in the “wind power” business who is trying to develop anything other than stock price.
Don’t confuse Davenport with facts.
The father of the previous owner of our farm had two wind towers generating electricity erected in the 1940s, one by the barn was also operating the well pump and one by the house. There were storage batteries in the barn and in the house.
When the electrical grid was set up in the 1950s, he dismantled the unit by the house and left the Eaton’s Samson windmill by the barn to continue to pump water.
Windmills kick ass at pumping water. They suck at generating electricity. Just a moment’s thought will reveal the reasons. Hint, it is easier to store water than electricity.
Phantom, there are days, especially when it is cold, that the windmill does not turn enough to pump water, so you have to have cisterns capable of holding a weeks supply of water.
From the comments at OppViews…”When will people quit using cost as the determining factor for everything.”
Speaking for myself….. when everything stops having a cost!