Can Obama save the world by boosting US renewable energy from 9% to 10% over four years?

Blowhards - WSJ.com

Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf ran the numbers and found that the effective tax rate for wind is minus-163.8%. In other words, every dollar a wind firm spends is subsidized to the tune of 64 cents from the government. The Energy Information Administration estimates that wind receives $23.37 in government benefits per megawatt hour -- compared to, say, 44 cents for coal. Despite these taxpayer crutches, wind only provides a little under 1% of U.S. net electric generation.

We'd prefer an energy policy that allows markets to shape the sources that predominate -- which would almost certainly put Cape Wind out of business. But President Obama seems determined to unload even more subsidies on green developers as he seeks to boost renewables to 10% of the U.S. electricity mix by the end of his first term and 25% by 2025; their share today is about 9% (5.8% of which is hydropower).

Cape Wind and Its DIscontents - Edward John Craig - Planet Gore on National Review Online

The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled “Blowhards” and excerpted below, is a heartwarming tale of green hypocrisy and aggrieved NIMBYism. It details the efforts of some of our favorite environmentally holier-than-thou Democrats to prevent a wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

Now, personally, having done some sailing around Nantucket Sound—including Hyanniport, where I witnessed Robert Kennedy tooling around in a fume-and-fuel-spewing powerboat—I would agree that Cape Wind’s massive towers would be horizon-marring eyesores. But all the aggrieved parties sited want these kind of wind towers built—just in someone else’s backyard. So pardon the schadenfreude.