Heidi Alexander: “I was reading in the New York Times on Saturday: Rich subsidies powering solar and wind projects; big rise in company…”

“I was reading in the New York Times on Saturday: Rich subsidies powering solar and wind projects; big rise in company aid; companies are virtually assured of profits. This is the New York Times. This isn't the conservative Washington, DC, Journal saying this. It is a very thorough article that talks about something I have been concerned about for a long time. It said: Taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of a solar plant halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on a former cattle ranch. It quotes the head of NRG, a very substantial company, saying: I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20 years in the power industry that involved less risk than these projects. It is just filling the desert with panels. From 2007 to 2010, Federal subsidies jumped to $14.7 billion from $5.1 billion, according to a recent study. It goes on and on. My own research shows, the Joint Tax Committee said that over the next 10 years taxpayer funding for wind--which our energy secretary testified is a mature technology--will cost the taxpayers $26 billion over the next 10 years. Wouldn't that money be better spent on energy research for clean energy, for finding ways to deal with used nuclear fuel, for getting a 500-mile battery, for getting an installed dollar kilowatt or reducing the debt at a time when we are borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we spend?…”