Green Energy Subsides Subverts Other Energy Technologies

Let's be honest about what is going on here when discussing alternative energy resources. The subsides for wind energy has nothing to do with alternative resources, how could it given much it costs to produce and then deliver the results to the public, what the subsides are for is to secure the environmental base of the progressive Democrats.

The billions of tax dollars that are wasted are of little consequence, it's the agenda that drives the need. 

Wind Energy Receives Preferential Treatment
Source: Nicolas Loris, "Let the Wind PTC Die Down Immediately," Heritage Foundation, October 8, 2013.
October 21, 2013

As the federal budget debate continues to heat up, one of the contentious energy policy battles is over the extension of the wind production tax credit (PTC), a 2.3-cents-per-kilowatt-hour handout that is awarded to wind producers and other qualifying sources and continues for a decade after initial production, says Nicolas Loris, the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Proponents of the subsidy are yet again calling for an extension or a multiyear phase-out, but

Congress should refrain from extending or phasing out the preferential treatment for wind and instead remove all targeted tax credits for all energy sources and technologies. And Congress should broadly lower tax rates to create a competitive environment that allows the best technologies to provide affordable, reliable energy for Americans.

• The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that extending the PTC one year would cost taxpayers $6.1 billion over 10 years, and a five-year extension would cost over $18 billion over the same time frame.
• With such a generous subsidy, wind producers can ignore costs, underbid other electricity producers in times of excess supply, sell their power to utilities and still profit by collecting the $2.3 cents per kilowatt hour generated from the handout.
• The PTC also threatens the long-term viability of the wind industry by focusing efforts on securing an extension rather than recognizing the true price point necessary to become competitive and innovative to achieve that goal.

Rather than creating a sustainable industry, the PTC has artificially propped up an industry, advanced special interests and allocated labor and capital away from more competitive uses in the marketplace. It is time to allow the PTC to sunset one final time and remove all preferential treatment in the energy industry.