A recent C.D.Howe Institute release, authored by Michael Trebilcock, raises serious questions about the efficacy and efficiency of wind turbines. His five major objections are:
- Industrial Wind Turbines Have Minimal Impact on Carbon Emissions
- Industrial Wind Turbines Are Uneconomic
- Industrial Wind Turbines Cause Insufficiently Researched Health Effects
- Industrial Wind Turbines Have Adverse Effects on Adjacent Property Values
- The Decision-making Process is Undemocratic and Will Undermine Efficient Regulation
Trebilcock raises important questrions in his explanations, but I especially like his conclusion, in which he emphasizes how bad politicians are at picking winners:
Good Politics, Bad Policy
In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions should be undertaken immediately, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment.16 Then there are the fiscal greens, who being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines). This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) – a classic Baptist-Bootlegger coalition, harking back to the Prohibition era – makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a rapidly-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond. (emphasis added)
In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions should be undertaken immediately, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment.16 Then there are the fiscal greens, who being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines). This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) – a classic Baptist-Bootlegger coalition, harking back to the Prohibition era – makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a rapidly-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond. (emphasis added)