Another one of Tom Keene’s latest Bloomberg Businessweek “EconoChats” features Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Energy, “the first wind-only energy company to go public.”
How dependent are you on the government for subsidies?
Almost every energy resource in the United States has subsidies. And so this industry has had good subsidies for a while. It is trending off and will continue to do so over the next few years. Our company believes that we can survive and do quite well without it. …
… Some Republicans want to wind down a wind subsidy up for renewal in early 2014.
I’m not worried. I think the subsidy is the right thing for the industry and for the country because we have about 500 manufacturing facilities supporting wind right now. And it’d be an awful thing to shut those down because there wasn’t continued support.
Perhaps Mr. Garland ought to read Roy Cordato’s recent report on the importance of calculating “net” subsidies for various energy sources. That calculation would paint a much different picture of the amount of taxpayer support dedicated to inefficient sources such as wind power.
