Offshore Wind Wire

The American Wind Energy Association campaigned hard this week for a Renewable Energy Standard after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid removed the requirement from proposed climate legislation.  One of the key arguments put forward by AWEA and RES supporters in Congress was that it would create much-needed jobs in the wind industry.

“We have 60 votes for an RES amendment and will continue to push for its consideration in this bill,” said AWEA President Denise Bode.  “Democrats, Republicans, environmental groups, labor unions, and companies across the country all strongly support the RES because it is essential for creating hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”

Twenty-eight senators wrote to Reid in favor of the RES, promoting “the mandate’s job-creating possibilities,” according to the Miami Herald.

“A strong RES will give certainty to clean energy companies that are looking to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. to manufacture wind turbines,” the senators wrote.

Some economists, however, believe the jobs argument is flawed, Greenwire reported yesterday.

The news service quoted Alan Viard, an economist who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, saying that “the jobs argument is very popular … it is very annoying to economists.”

Boston Think-Tank Criticizes Cape Wind Prices

Two senior economists at the Beacon Hill Institute, a Boston-based think-tank, sharply criticized Cape Wind’s electric rates in a Boston Globe opinion piece Wednesday.

Massachusetts regulators are reviewing the power purchase agreement between National Grid and Cape Wind.  The utility has agreed to buy the wind farm’s electricity  for 20.7 cents per kilowatt hour in the first year of operation and must be approved before financing and construction can move forward.

David Tuerck, the Institute’s director, and senior economist Jonathan Haughton said Cape Wind had initially promised price savings.