The free market doesn’t do very well with projects that take decades to make profitable. Especially with today’s emphasis on making this quarter profitable….

If true, that’s a whopping $600K per year for a $180M capital cost. But since the rate subsidy payments Michigan Wind 2 will receive each year are several times that $600K, how does that benefit taxpayers/ratepayers overall?

Commercial wind has a real future, but it does the industry no good to publish this kind of propaganda using Enron-type accounting. As the old saying goes, “Honesty is the best policy”. The author would be better served by simply admitting the facts. Something like this: “While US commercial wind COE is still not competitive with conventional sources, it is rapidly becoming more cost effective each year due to the technological innovation and creativity of American companies. And soon, American manufacturers will produce wind turbines that can generate power at competitive rates without subsidies.”

You just need to have some faith and patience. The innovative nature of American entrepreneurs and companies will eventually do for the wind turbine business the same thing it did for the consumer electronics business. Remember 30 years ago when there was no such thing as personal computers or cell phones? And now in 2012, even poor people can afford the laptop computers and cell phones that didn’t even exist back then.

The free market works far better and more efficiently than government’s artificial price controls.