The Earth Project: Flying High

The Earth Project: Flying High (Video - roughly 3.5 minutes.)

" Google and a team of engineers are building the wind turbine of the future. The turbine, which operates much like a kite, is essentially a carbon fiber wing that flies 700 feet above a traditional turbine and generates about 50 percent more power. It’s tethered by a cable that transmits the energy to the ground. By flying higher, the turbine reaches a stronger and more reliable wind source that allows it to operate more efficiently than turbines on the ground. " 

Meanwhile, Dead Air: End of Tax Credit Deflates Wind Power

" The tax credit, originally enacted in 1992, in its most recent form gave turbine owners 2.3 cents for every kilowatt-hour of power their windmills produced and applied also to wind power construction. It sounds small, but the credit added up. It not only eased the intense upfront costs of constructing high-tech turbines, but also often made the difference when wind was compared to competitors in the solar, coal, and oil and gas sectors – all of which still receive tax breaks and other incentives. Oil, gas and coal, for example, received more than $21 billion in state and federal subsidies last year, according to a new report by Oil Change International, an environmental advocacy group.

" 'It should go,' Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., himself a leading defender of coal subsidies, said of the credit last month at a policy dinner hosted by The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. 'Hell, your mother only carried you nine months.' "

You can leave my mother out of it.