Wind mandate

To the editor:

The U.S. will likely fail to develop renewable energy cost-effectively and fairly. Renewable portfolio standards allow utility monopolies to award contracts to themselves and their affiliates.

The feed-in tariff is the only major regulatory mechanism that offers non-discriminatory prices to all market entrants.

Free markets are preferred, but the U.S. failed to create competitive power markets under deregulation because it awarded coal and nuclear power plants all kinds of advantages, including stranded cost subsidies, grandfather exemptions to environmental regulations, preferential grid access, etc.

The wind industry is by far the biggest problem for all other forms of renewable energy, including solar, geothermal and biomass. The American Wind Energy Association sold out to the utility monopolies a long time ago — look at their membership.

The utilities prefer wind energy because the intermittent power production at the wrong time of the day becomes an excuse to build more fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants.

If the wind industry gets renewable portfolio standards, then what follows will be the discriminatory token contracts awarded to them, at least until utility monopolists are ready to take over the industry.

Of course, environmentalists go along since they love wind energy. Other forms of renewable energy have little chance against the unholy political alliance of the utilities, the wind industry and the environmentalists.

The Democrats are now undertaking to mandate wind over all other forms of renewables.

Tell me how that would be fair to power consumers?