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In a decision that evokes former President Obama’s environmental agenda, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on March 23, 2017, expanded its authority in a way that’s likely to drive up electricity rates. Every four years, Xcel Energy undergoes a resource planning process that outlines their ability to meet ratepayers’ electricity demand. They present portfolios containing cost analyses regarding the utility’s generation, and the Commission selects the “lowest cost resources available to provide the company with enough capacity and energy to in turn be able to provide customers with reliable electricity.” However, in the 2016 Energy Resource Plan, the Public...

Donald Trump is not a fan of wind turbines, as he has hinted occasionally on Twitter.But there’s a very powerful lobby which would like us to see wind turbines as being clean, eco-friendly and vital for the planet’s future. So if President Trump is to crush this bloated, parasitical industry as it deserves he’ll need some serious fire support. This piece by Matt Ridley is a big help. It convincingly demonstrates that wind turbines are even more of a monstrous stupidity than any of us had hitherto imagined. It starts with a quiz, whose answer may surprise you: To the...

Two green energy companies contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the American Indian tribe spearheading a months-long demonstration against an oil pipeline in North Dakota. Standing Rock Sioux voted unanimously April 5 to accept two $150,000 donations from ConEdison Development and Fagen Inc., both of which have partnered up to build windmills in the North Dakota area, according to internal documents kept by the tribe. ConEdison Development acquired land near Standing Rock’s reservation and began construction on a wind power facility last year. Fagen was a contractor on the project. The $250,000 donations to the tribe were meant...

The developer of the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm installed the first steel foundation for the project off Rhode Island’s coast. The Sunday installation of Deepwater Wind Block Island Wind Farm came just in time for a Monday tour of the site that will include Obama administration officials, lawmakers and Rhode Island’s governor, among others. ADVERTISEMENT “It was a very big moment,” Jeffrey Grybowski, Chief Executive Officer of Deepwater Wind, told the Providence Journal shortly after watching the first foundation’s installation from a boat. The company had hoped to install the foundation on Thursday, but the weather did not...

In what appears to be the first of its kind ruling in the United States, the Board of Health in Brown County, Wisconsin, where Green Bay is located, has declared a local industrial wind plant to be a human health hazard. The specific facility consists of eight 500-foot high, 2.5 megawatt industrial wind turbines. The board made its finding with a 4-0 vote (three members were not present) at an Oct. 14 meeting after it had wrestled with health complaints about the wind plant for more than four years. Ultimately, the board’s ruling was based on a year-long survey which...

The highly touted, government-subsidized, unreliable, intermittent and expensive "alternative power" schemes currently in vogue are nothing but a phenomenal waste of money

PUEBLO, Colo. - Black Hills executives heard another earful from its customers during a hearing on its proposed rate increase. "I'm mad as hell about these rate increases," said Frank Soudek. "Reasonably priced power. That's what we're asking for," said Lee Gladney. Black Hills wants to increase utility rates by 4 percent starting next year to make up for the construction cost of a wind farm in Huerfano County.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A California wind farm will become the first in the nation to avoid prosecution if eagles are injured or die when they run into the giant turning blades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday. The Shiloh IV Wind Project LLC, 60 miles east of San Francisco, will receive a special permit allowing up to five golden eagles to be accidentally killed over five years. Previously, such a violation could potentially draw criminal charges and discourage private investment in wind farms known for catching birds in their rotors. The permit will require the facility to...

New Jersey regulators rejected a Chinese-backed windmill project twice, but that didn’t stop the Department of Energy. The federal government has awarded $47 million to sweeten the deal for a $188 million project the Garden State has deemed too risky for ratepayers. ... The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities concluded in April that the Chinese company did not demonstrate financial integrity.

A small airplane heading back to South Dakota after a Texas cattle sale crashed into a wind farm in foggy weather, killing the pilot and three passengers. ... Similar conditions contributed to a 2008 crash in southeast Minnesota. Federal investigators concluded the pilot of a 1948 Cessna 140 lacked proper instrument training for the day's foul weather. The National Transportation Safety Board's probable cause report also noted the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering around a wind farm.

German politicians are vowing tougher laws to protect investors following the collapse of a wind farm company that exposed investors to potential losses of €1.4 billion ($1.9 billion). Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the government will strengthen securities rules after Prokon Regenerative Energien GmbH firm filed for insolvency potentially leaving losses for about 70,000 private investors. Ms. Merkel has campaigned ardently for tighter regulation of global markets since the 2008 financial crisis. But the collapse of Prokon shines a light on weaknesses in securities rules closer to home.

Lights left on during a foggy night last year at a West Virginia wind farm are thought to be behind the grizzly deaths of nearly 500 songbirds. It was the third time it happened -- and each time, the federal government looked the other way. ... “The playing field is not leveled,” American Bird Conservancy spokesman Bill Johns ... All they do now is go, ‘Whoops, my bad’ and it’s forgiven.” ... The wind sector has had an exemption from prosecution under two of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Eagle Protection Act. A violation...

The Bay State’s largest wind energy farm is nearing completion. Gov. Deval Patrick and state Energy and state energy officials on Monday visited the 19-turbine Hoosac Wind Power project in the western Massachusetts towns of Florida and Monroe. Officials say the wind farm on track to be completed by year’s end will produce enough power for more than 10,000 homes a year and offset about 64 million pounds of carbon dioxide released by traditional electrical generation. The project is also expected to generate about $6.8 million in tax revenue for the towns. But not all local residents are happy. Opponents...

ANNAPOLIS — The General Assembly adjourned Monday night after a chaotic closing session in which members failed to pass a set of proposed tax increases or a bill to expand gambling in the state. Lawmakers passed a balanced budget and hoped to pass accompanying bills raising income taxes and shifting teacher-pension costs onto counties, but they ran out of time before the assembly’s required midnight adjournment. The House attempted to extend the session by passing a resolution shortly before midnight, but the Senate did not address the measure in time. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said he was...

ANNAPOLIS — With just a week left in the 2012 General Assembly session, lawmakers have hundreds of bills left to consider. But only a handful of proposals will get most of their attention. The House and Senate still must approve a joint version of the state budget, which they are required to do before adjourning Monday. Legislators also will consider bills that would implement offshore-wind energy and set up a referendum on whether to allow table games and a new casino in Prince George’s County. A conference committee of House and Senate representatives got to work Monday on hashing out...

The House passed the administration’s offshore wind power bill Friday amid accusations Gov. Martin O’Malley secured votes on the House Economic Matters Committee with disparity grants to committee members’ districts. “Those of you who have been here longer than two weeks know there’s a lot of complicated pressures that go into making a bill pass or fail,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “Sometimes it takes a little nudge, sometimes it takes a carrot, and sometimes it takes a stick.” The disparity grant program in Maryland provides subsidies to jurisdictions with income tax receipts that fall below 75% of the...

Evanston officials hope that a partnership announced today among five Great Lakes states and several federal agencies could clear the murky regulatory waters that have made efforts to develop offshore wind farms on the Great Lakes difficult. Evanston began looking at such a project two years ago. “I think it’s terrific news, because I was told when I first started exploring wind turbines in the lake that no one would put them in the lake because there were no rules governing how to do it,” Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl said. “So I’m delighted that five states made this pact and...

That’s the verdict of British writer James Delingpole, in a blog posted in the Daily Telegraph, about an article by Kevin Myers published in the Irish Independent online version, brought to our attention by a Paul Chesser Facebook post. (Got all that? Ain’t the Internet grand?) Myers’ focus is on the potentially fatal results of European wind energy, should this form of green delusion be carried to its logical extreme, and the pure destruction of wealth its massive misallocation of resources already represents (imagine hundreds of Solyndras). Thanks to members of the Michigan House and Senate, since 2008 the same...

In the name of “green energy,” the Obama administration is using taxpayer money to subsidize a New Hampshire wind farm that is a subsidiary of a hugely profitable company. BAIF Granite Holdings was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, which is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York. That company, which runs clean energy operations around the world, has deep pockets. It reported net income of $454 million in 2009 and $3.2 billion in 2010. With that kind of backing, it is curious that the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would guarantee up to 80...

The seemingly endless expansion of wind power production in the United States has pushed large parts of the nation’s electric grid to the limits of its abilities. Now, in the Pacific Northwest, the power grid is pushing back. Wind power producers in Oregon and Washington State are likely to be the first casualties claimed in the impending morass triggered by calls for reverse rolling power outages at wind farms to keep the regional transmission system operating smoothly. Needless to say, wind investors are pissssssssed.