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From our family to yours, Merry Christmas. 

This runs contrary to the spirit of Christmas, but it looks like we have no hope. Energy Guardian (12/21/12) reports: “The Obama administration's plan to spend $510 million on refineries to make drop-in biofuels for its Great Green Fleet advanced after House passage Thursday of a $633 million 2013 defense authorization bill.”   Look Ma! We’re famous! The Hill  (12/20/12) reports: “Letter signatories included the American Energy...
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It is increasingly clear that Senator Lamar Alexander has been eating his spinach. IER (12/18/12) reports: “In a speech Thursday on the Senate floor, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) gave the following floor speech in response to the wind industry’s phase-out proposal of the wind Production Tax Credit:”  

In a way, it’s like the government is raising a very dysfunctional family.  One kid gets a timeout while the other continues to raid the cookie jar.  This does not end well...

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Like they always say: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. POWER Mag  (12/1/12) reports: "Forgotten by many proponents is the justification for the PTC in the first place: to reduce CO2 emissions.... [Yet] ... many utilities with large amounts of wind generation steadfastly refuse to release operating data for analysis. I suspect to do so would mean the release of empirical data to build the opposition’s case for insignificant CO2 reduction and poor operating economics. I was...
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Even the Washington Post thinks the wind PTC should end.  Too bad they blow on the carbon tax. Washington Post  (12/15/12) reports: “Some of those who sympathize with the wind subsidy, known as the production tax credit (PTC), say that it represents a second-best approach to supporting green energy. In fact it is not even a third- or fourth-best alternative to a carbon tax. At a cost of $1 billion a year, it offers wind operators a flat tax credit for every kilowatt-hour of electricity...
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It’s like Dan always says: Let the kids play, ref! IER  (12/13/12) reports: “Persuaded by these claims, the Congress enacted the tax credit in 1992 obviously hoping that wind would become self-sufficient and not reliant on the U.S. taxpayer. That has not come to pass and the wind lobby is back in Washington, D.C. with its hand out. The law is fairly simple: it pays wind producers 2.2c per kilowatt hour for their electricity, whether the electricity is necessary or not. In some cases,...
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How do you like ‘dem apples?: “Hollywood wimps out and makes a formula film.” WSJ (12/12/12) reports: “If you somehow missed the twists and turns, Mr. Damon, who played a genius in "Good Will Hunting" and a master spy in the "Bourne" movies, has pled ignorance of the fact that financing for his movie came partly from Abu Dhabi, which, as the Heritage Foundation puts it, has a "direct financial interest" in fanning opposition to domestic energy development.”   Absolutely.  We...
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We realize that taking someone else’s money for your own purposes is always tempting.  Congress should resist. AEA  (12/12/12) reports: “The American Energy Alliance joined five other free market groups today in sending a letter to 158 members of the 112th Congress, urging them oppose an extension of the wind Production Tax Credit that would transfer taxpayer dollars from their states to other states that mandate renewable energy. AEA President Thomas Pyle signed the letter, along with...
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We could not have said it any better ourselves: “The Wind Production Tax Credit: Corporate Welfare at its Worst”. National Center for Policy Analysis  (December 2012) reports: “Americans will soon learn whether the political class in Washington is serious about cleaning up the dirty acts of favoritism and cronyism that are business as usual in the nation's capital. From loan guarantees for the well-connected to subsidies for the non-competitive, Washington specializes in feathering...
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Does anybody really think the Supermajority is going to let CA refiners stay in business by allowing them to export their product to less crazy states instead of supplying the CA market?  This story is not going to end well.  For anybody. Sacramento Bee  (12/9/12) reports: “Regulators have imposed cap and trade, seeking to use market forces to reduce carbon emissions, and created the low-carbon fuel standard, to force refiners to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel. There are rules to...
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This is all run by affordable, reliable electricity brought to you by hydrocarbons.  Sometimes by nuclear power. Slate (12/7/12) reports: “So it turns out the Internet really is a series of tubes. Last October, for the first time ever, Google posted dozens of rare photographs inside and around its data centers revealing the absurd level of organization, energy, and design that goes into powering some of the largest, most powerful systems plugged into the Internet.”

It’s probably...
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