There’s so much talk about how great renewable energy is and that we (i.e. taxpayers) need to invest more in renewable technology.  Renewable energy proponents fail to mention that we already are spending a mind-boggling amount of money on renewable energy.

The debate needs to be: why are we spending so much taxpayer money on such poor sources of energy?  

The following is based on 2007 United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) data on federal subsidies (costs are dollars per megawatthour–see Table ES5):

Fossil Fuels

Coal: $0.44 cents
Natural Gas: $0.25 cents
Nuclear: $1.59

Renewable Energy Sources*

Biomass: $0.89 cents
Wind: $23.37
Solar: $24.34

*Includes the most commonly discussed renewable energy sources in NC

Biomass isn’t that heavily subsidized.  However, wind electricity receives 53 times the subsidies that coal does.  Solar receives 55 times the amount of subsidies that coal receives.

In 2007, wind received almost as much as coal in terms of total subsidies: Wind received $724 million and coal received $854 million.

Despite this incredible investment in wind, coal produced about 63 times more electricity than wind power.

As for solar, it received a lot less than coal in terms of total subsidies ($14 million).  Of course, coal produced about 1,946 times the electricity that solar did.  When analyzed per megawatthour (as shown above), solar is the most heavily subsidized electricity source.

For decades, taxpayers have had their money wasted on solar and wind power.  These aren’t new energy sources–these are old energy sources that have never lived up to the sales pitches of their proponents largely due to their inherent flaws.  There’s nothing wrong with private actors investing in solar and wind, but the government should stop wasting our money.

Even environmental extremists that want to reduce CO2 should want to start focusing on other sources of energy (of course, that assumes they really care about CO2–if they did, they would be the biggest supporters of nuclear and hydropower).

Besides the lies and misleading information coming from environmental extremists and many politicians, the problem is the Department of Energy has so much vested in these costly and unreliable sources of energy that it will be difficult to ever stop this waste of money. 

To make things even worse, major companies like General Electric also have a lot invested in making sure wind power, in particular, is pushed down our throats at the expense of the public.  Citizens are faced with double taxation: First, there are the taxes to subsidize these electricity sources, and then secondly, there is the extra energy taxes we are forced to pay because NC utilities are required to use these energy sources.

It is time to say No to Big Wind and Solar.