Wind Power

CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. — The Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected bird species, shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret, an Associated Press investigation has found. More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife...

CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. — The Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected bird species, shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret, an Associated Press investigation has found. More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife...

Six birds found dead recently in Southern California's Tehachapi Mountains were majestic golden eagles. But some bird watchers say that in an area where dozens of wind turbines slice the air they were also sitting ducks. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating to determine what killed the big raptors, and declined to divulge the conditions of the remains. But the likely cause of death is no mystery to wildlife biologists who say they were probably clipped by the blades of some of the 80 wind turbines at the three-year-old ...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to subsidize construction of giant windmills in the Atlantic Ocean advanced largely along party lines in the House of Delegates on Wednesday, putting the bill one step away from the Senate, where it died last year. In contrast to last year, however, the bill's chances remain strong in the Senate. There, President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr (D-Calvert) recently attended a rally in support of the measure, and has removed from a key committee one of three Democrats who held up the governor's...

PRESIDENT OBAMA recently visited a factory in Newton, Iowa , that builds wind-turbine blades, contrasting the industry of the past — Maytag left the town in 2007 — with a vision of a future with middle-class green manufacturing jobs. Who could be against that? One problem: According to Mr. Obama, that future apparently requires a clumsy array of expensive federal subsidies. The wind production tax credit (PTC) devotes more than $1 billion a year to support wind-power projects, rewarding them for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they generate, not for...

After years of battling the owners of the massive coal-fired power plant near his Charles County home, Ken Robinson decided that he wanted to reduce his dependence on their electricity. Now, he's taking a most unusual step. Pending two more layers of approval, Robinson, 52, plans to install a 33-foot-tall wind turbine in his back yard, paying upwards of $20,000 to construct his own source of energy. The move could result in a huge saving on his electricity bill as well as the satisfaction of relying less on global energy company...

The Feb. 21 editorial " On a power trip " as well as the Jan. 31 editorial " Power play " did not account for one critical fact regarding wind farms off Maryland's shores and employed an inappropriate comparison that underscored this omission. The Post suggested that it would be just as prudent to establish an orange-growing industry in Maryland to reduce orange imports as it would be to invest in offshore-wind capacity to reduce the state's energy dependence. However, while Maryland does not have the tropical climate...

Charles Lane ["Government's bad bets," op-ed, June 19] suggested that the United States should "fold" on incentives for clean, renewable sources of energy such as wind. This would be shortsighted in the extreme. American wind power built 35 percent of all new U.S. electric-generation capacity in recent years, an amount second only to that from natural gas. Wind's primary federal incentive, the production tax credit (PTC), is the main driver behind this growth and has helped stimulate as much as $20 billion a year in private...

Wise policy decisions about energy sources will follow from comparing the costs and benefits of options in various locations [" Squall on Md. wind farm plan worsens ," Metro, Jan. 9]. Let's compare the economic and health benefits of developing an alternative energy source — offshore wind power for Maryland — to the costs and risks of trying to maintain the status quo, mainly, burning fossil fuels. Let's also avoid inaccurate groupings. Opponents of wind energy lump together the offshore wind option with problems in California's...

The June 4 editorial " Wind power " neglected two key points with respect to renewable-energy subsidies. The first is that we're still spending billions of dollars to subsidize fossil fuels, which we know are a dead end for us, for future generations and for the rest of life on the planet. Subsidizing wind power at least helps level the playing field with the subsidies that we're shoveling into the bank accounts of the fossil fuel industry. If there were a price on carbon to roughly reflect the damage it does to the climate, wind power...

Regarding the Feb. 11 editorial " Return of an unwise wind plan " : Offshore wind power is a critical piece of America's energy future. It offers answers for advancing our economy, reducing pollution tied to global warming and moving toward energy independence. The time is now to put Maryland businesses at the forefront of a new American industry. The Post was right to praise the state's policy that at least 20 percent of Maryland's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.

The Feb. 5 front-page article " Despite likely O'Malley win, wind project might not fly " underestimated the prospects for developing Maryland's most abundant clean-energy resource. Gov. Martin O'Malley's 2013 offshore wind bill represents Maryland's piece of the puzzle for launching one of our region's best available solutions to the global climate crisis. The bill is projected to lead to a 200-megawatt wind farm off Maryland's coast, nearly doubling the state's current supply of power from the wind and sun and providing...

This piece is part of a roundtable centered around innovation prescriptions for the new Congress and President Barack Obama's second term. Read more about the roundtable here. In 2012, superstorm Sandy pummeled the East Coast to the tune of $50 to $60 billion in damage. A record-breaking drought wiped out almost a third of the nation's corn crop, resulting in roughly $18 billion in losses. The Arctic ice cap shrank to a record minimum, decades ahead of the projections made by climate scientists as recently as 2007 . In short,...

Google has now invested over $1 billion into about 2 GW — or the capacity of the Hoover Dam — worth of clean power projects. The latest investment, which the search giant announced on Wednesday, is a $200 million equity stake in a large wind farm in Texas. The 161 MW wind farm, called the Spinning Spur Wind Project, has a capacity to power about 60,000 U.S homes, and is located in Oldham County, Texas. The project is being built by EDF Renewable Energy, uses turbines from Siemens, and utility SPS has...

AMERICA'S DEBATE on green energy is pathetic. In the past year, the two biggest green-energy issues in Congress have been whether to to strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of various authorities and whether to renew a crude subsidy for wind power . Here's the green-energy objective that Congress should pursue: transitioning the country off carbon emissions without unduly burdening taxpayers, consumers and businesses. The best way to do that is to put a tax on carbon emissions that ramps up over time.

If you have worked hard for five decades, made pots of money and now want to squander it all in Las Vegas on wine, women and baccarat, go ahead. If, however, you harbor the antisocial desire — stigmatized as such by America's judgmental tax code — to bequeath your wealth to your children, this would be an excellent month to die. Absent a congressional fix before Jan. 1, the death tax , which is 35 percent on estates above $5 million, reverts to...

AUSTIN, July 17 -- Texas, headquarters of America's oil industry, is about to stake a fortune on wind power. In what experts say is the biggest investment in the clean and renewable energy in U.S. history, utility officials gave preliminary approval Thursday to a $4.9 billion plan to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from West Texas to urban areas such as Dallas. "People think about oil wells and football in Texas, but in 10 years, they'll look back and say this was a brilliant thing to...

The wind power industry boasts enviable political assets in its fight to preserve a prized tax benefit. Republican and Democratic governors trumpet the benefits of wind energy; industry officials can identify manufacturing jobs at risk in crucial presidential election swing states if the tax credit expires; and a phalanx of lobbyists and consultants are working to ensure it stays in place for at least one more year. But now an unusual coalition is fighting the extension, including tea party followers, GOP presidential...