Top Texas energy official wants step back from wind power subsidy | www.mystatesman.com.
There are a few points that Donna misses…
1) There are no long term waste storage issues with wind power.
2) There are no long term pollution issues with wind power.
Those two items alone are worth the subsidy. What EIA isn’t calculating into the report is a cost for the pollution and waste created by legacy generation facilities (coal, gas, nuclear). For a pollution cost example, look at how much it costs farmers to treat their fields with lime to compensate for the increased soil acidity resulting from pollution created by legacy power plants raining out on their fields. Those little costs all add up and up to create tens of billions of dollars in costs that are not being properly allocated to the right folks. Then there’s waste storage issues… we’re all familiar with what we have to do with ‘spent’ nuclear fuel, but there’s also a tremendous amount of coal ash produced that causes groundwater contamination all over the country.
Since EIA missed this too, we’ll let Donna off the hook on this one and assume she just didn’t realize it.
Not that I think it’ll change her mind, I just hope some of the Commissioners may see this and ignore her.