Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : A Shore Thing? Why Offshore Wind Power Will Likely Struggle

Offshore wind power is the Holy Grail of renewable energy: It’s clean, abundant, and out of sight. Now that energy security is meshing with environmental concerns inside the White House, is offshore wind power ready to come of age?

Probably not as fast as wind-power boosters would hope. If the economics of onshore wind are tricky enough to give T. Boone Pickens pause, the challenges facing offshore wind are even greater.
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...Offshore turbines exposed to stronger winds more months of the year also take a battering, which leads to downtime for additional maintenance and repairs, pushing total output back down.
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The bottom line is that for offshore wind to become a realistic part of the energy mix, three things have to happen. The government has to put a really big pricetag on greenhouse-gas emissions to penalize dirtier but cheaper sources of power. Wind turbines have to be made more robust and reliable without increasing their cost. And the wind industry has to find enough offshore and deepwater equipment to install hundreds of huge machines even as the oil industry presses ahead with its own deep-water exploration, putting offshore equipment at a premium.

A Conservative Teacher: Beware of the Church of Climate Alarm

The issue of Global Warming has sort of faded away right now- probably because it is the middle of winter, and it is very cold, and when it is cold, it is a tough sell to convince people that the whole planet is uncontrollably warming because of human actions and the only solution is massive government control over every aspect of our lives. Don't worry though- when summer gets really hot, idiots will parrot this idea again and government will take away more of our liberty.

The Global Warming Thought Police Are Here » The Foundry

But for the left, massive government intervention to combat global warming has become such a doctrine of faith that no dissent is to be tolerated.

Wind Watch: Professor says wind turbines a threat to bats, birds

Rhode Island environmental groups have supported the push for wind power.

Eugenia Marks, senior director of policy for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, points out that global warming caused by burning fossil fuels may be a greater risk to animals than wind turbines.

“There are risks and benefits to any course we take. What we need to do is increase the benefits and decrease the risks,” Marks said. Turbine location, she says, “is a very important part of the process.”

Climate Skeptic: New Climate Video - RCRC Climate Debate

I have finally been able to publish a video of my presentation at the climate debate held by the Regional Council of Rural Counties last September. The entire video is about an hour long. As usual, I am offering several ways to view it...

Big Three Set to Become Green-Church Converts - Henry Payne - Planet Gore on National Review Online

“They need to tell Congress and the world that they are visionary leaders of a rebranded green auto industry,” Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm told the Detroit News. Mind you, this is one of President-elect Obama’s top advisors on automotive and economic issues. And she’s from Detroit’s backyard to boot!

“They need to convey that they intend to lead our nation to energy independence,” Granholm continued.

This is sheer madness. For his part, Obama also seems to be consulting with ascetic monks, not economists, when it comes to business issues.