Wind Power Needs Long-term Policy Support (Like Fossil Fuels Get), Ted Turner & Others Pronounce

May 25th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

Wind power needs to be and will likely be a key source of electricity in the near future (and already is in some places). As legendary business leader Ted Turner said at the U.S. WINDPOWER conference in California yesterday, embracing renewable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal is an “even more of an obvious business decision for him today than launching eventual cable giant CNN was in 1980.” Turner stated, “I’ve never seen anything more clear as the case for wind, solar, and geothermal.”

However, Turner and several others stated the clear need to provide wind power (and other renewables) with the same policy security that fossil fuels and nuclear have received for several decades.

“They must be long-term incentives so we can plan intelligently,” Turner said.

Here’s a short video with little more from Turner (from the WINDPOWER conference) on wind and solar power:

http://youtu.be/deQ6TV5SZsI

Wind’s most important incentive, the Production Tax Credit, gets one or two year extensions repeatedly and has even been allowed to expire. This incentive and others like it need long-term, 10- and 20-year policies, at least, to ensure stability in the energy market for investors.

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) CEO Denise Bode made this point emphatically in an interview on FOX News recently that I highlighted (video included) one month ago.

The Production Tax Credit will expire again at the end of 2012 if not extended. Hopefully, Congress can use some common sense (for a short time, at least) and extend the tax credit for a long period of time finally, along with other stable policies that make it clear the government is not just paying lip service to clean energy while handing cash to coal and oil behind its back.

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