Incentives for Wind Energy Coming Back Again

I’m not sure how people in the wind industry react to news like this concerning the Production Tax Credit (PTC); I guess it’s hard to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Personally, I find the continuing flip-flopping of incentives for renewable energy to be incredibly irritating, as it’s an in-my-face reminder of what’s so sickeningly wrong with the U.S. approach to energy. 

I.e., we have no energy policy.  We hand the oil companies tens of billions of dollars per year in subsidies; that’s a deeply rooted aspect of our laws dating back almost a century; it will take an (incredibly unlikely) act of Congress to overturn.  Meanwhile, the plants that manufacture wind turbines produce, shutter, produce, then shutter again, as Congress turns on and off the subsidies for wind energy.  Investors don’t like this type of unpredictability, and, understandably, run away as fast as their legs will carry them. 

If I were in the fossil fuel industry, I couldn’t ask for anything more favorable.  It would even be hard to buy.  Wait…..you don’t suppose….?