Thomas Content, of the Milwaukee Journal, blogs about a recent report on wind power:

Wisconsin ranks 17th in the nation in the amount of wind power it can produce, and it lags far behind nearby states.

Those statistics were released Tuesday when the American Wind Energy Association published itssecond-quarter industry report.

The report found Texas is the leading wind state, followed by Iowa and California. Nine states have more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power capacity, including Iowa (3,043) and Minnesota (1,805). Illinois ranks 10th with 915. Wisconsin has 449, including several wind farms built in 2008 and one, Butler Ridge, that opened this year. Until early 2008, the state had 53 megawatts of power production from wind power.

Wisconsin’s utilities have made great gains in increasing their wind power production.  They have done this both in-state and out of state.  According to this Department of Energy map, the states which rank above Wisconsin have a greater capacity to power the windmills.  Wisconsin lacks the power that Minnesota and Iowa have, so companies like Alliant Energy have taken advantage of building wind farms out of state.

For a list of current wind farm locations in Wisconsin please follow this link.

The Edison Electric Institute has published More than 100 ways to improve your electric bill. Here are a few of their ideas:

Cooling

Air conditioners vary considerably in efficiency and in the amount of energy used. Therefore, select equipment based on its federal energy effi­ciency rating. For window units, this rating is the Energy Efficiency Ratio, or EER. New standards for room air condition­ers went into effect on October 1, 2000. For many types of room air conditioners, the minimum EER is 9.0 or 9.7. As a general rule, an EER of 11 or more is excellent.

Televisions
The average plasma TV uses about 339 watts, while an average LCD TV uses 211 watts. If the TV is used for 3 hours per day, the plasma TV will use about 371 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year and cost about $39.34 to operate, while the LCD TV will use about 231 kWh per year and cost about $24.49 to operate (based on a national average cost of 10.6 cents per kWh).

We are all looking for ways to pinch pennies these days, and this list is a great start.

3ietvbjcym

The Defend My Dividend campaign is hard at work protecting your investments:

Defend My Dividend (DMD), a coalition created by the American Gas Association (AGA) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) to preserve fair tax rates on qualified dividends, today commended proposals by President Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to make permanent the current capital gains and dividend tax rates for the majority of Americans while capping the rate at 20 percent for higher-income families. Chairman Baucus recently introduced legislation that mirrors the capital gains and dividend policies in President Obama’s FY2010 budget.

To get active in the Defend My Dividend campaign please click here.

Recently, Congressman Paul Ryan penned an editorial on the affects of Cap and Trade:

The last thing Wisconsin families need is higher energy prices. But the House passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would do just that. By requiring all energy producers to buy expensive government permits in order to produce energy from certain natural resources or to produce certain goods such as steel or cement, cold-weather states such as Wisconsin will take direct hits in higher energy costs. As a result, I voted against this measure.

While this bill’s proponents promise new “green” jobs and less reliance on oil, they ignore what American taxpayers already pay to support cleaner energy production. Taxpayers already provide a nearly 40 percent subsidy rate for solar and wind producers; $15 billion per year for other renewable energy sources and conservation programs; $24 billion for the energy-related portion of the Department of Energy’s budget; and $39 billion to the so-called “stimulus” bill for other energy projects.

But they claim we need to spend more. Their plan’s “cap and tax” scheme claims it can slow global warming by raising the cost of fossil fuels, which provide 86 percent of U.S. energy. The bill’s authors tried to reduce its impact on households through complicated allowances, tax credits and rebates; but the fact remains: this plan will raise the cost of energy by $1 trillion over the next 10 years—12 times our current energy spending. That cost will fall on American families through higher energy prices, higher taxes, more government debt or a combination of all three.

It’s clear that Cap and Trade is just another tax which will directly impact industrial states like Wisconsin.  We encourage our readers to log in to PowerLines and keep the pressure on their representatives.

…in India.  Why is it acceptable for United States companies to build $40 billion worth of clean, safe, efficient nuclear energy in India but not Wisconsin?  Because Wisconsin bans new nuclear plants like those we will build for India, we currently have no viable option, other than coal, for the new base-load energy required for economic growth.

“Base-load” power is running all the time.  It’s the reliable, consistent energy we need to run the hospitals, factories, farms and offices when the wind isn’t blowing, the sun isn’t shining and when natural gas is needed to heat our homes.

Regarding the Indian plan, The London Telegraph explains:

” India is desperate to increase its power generating capacity to fuel its growing economy.”

With proposed federal Cap and Trade legislation written to make energy in coal dependent states much more expensive and an outdated nuclear moratorium preventing new nuclear plants, Wisconsin has fewer option to compete than we are giving India.

When India has clean, efficient, safe and reliable American built nuclear plants and Wisconsin has new regulatory costs for our coal generated base-load power, where will our jobs go?

The answer is not to stop India from having access to nuclear energy.  The answer is to ensure Wisconsin has the same options for nuclear power that India has.  We must overturn the Wisconsin Nuclear Moratorium.