Heidi Alexander: “I would say to the Senator from Arizona, just to be specific about this--negative pricing, as we call it--the…”

“I would say to the Senator from Arizona, just to be specific about this--negative pricing, as we call it--the opportunity for a wind developer at, say, 3 o'clock in the morning in Chicago to literally pay the utility to take the wind power, thereby causing the nuclear plant or the coal plant to be less useful, is contributing--it is not the whole reason, but it is contributing to the closing of nuclear plants. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said that because of the low price of natural gas and this subsidy for wind, we might lose as many as 25 percent of our nuclear plants in the next 10 years. Nuclear power produces 60 percent of the carbon-free, sulfur-free, nitrogen-free electricity--air pollution-free electricity. A number of environmental groups have begun to point out their concern for what would happen to our air, if we lost this important source of clean generation of electricity. This is just one more reason we should let wind take its natural place in the marketplace. Wind is now 4 percent of all the electricity that we produce. It was, as the Senator said, the fastest growing form of generation, so let it compete. Let it go where it should go. Offshore is another place it could go. But it is time to end the subsidy and let wind stand on its own.”