Gloucester justifies the purchase on the grounds that the city will save $11 million over the next 25 years. Mayor Carolyn Kirk, quoted in the Boston Globe, said: "The deal allows the city to power all of its buildings — from City Hall to its high school — at a subsidized rate, saving almost $500,000 a year for the next quarter-century." But this calculation is flawed because it doesn’t take into account massive federal subsidies—which could have been used for other purposes to benefit Gloucester residents—and the lower cost of energy production using natural gas. Gloucester’s windmills are part of the new green theology, which holds that renewables always trump fossil fuels. Too bad for Gloucester residents that the facts don’t fit the fairy tale. DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, a Washington Examiner columnist ([email protected]) and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:31:26 +0000
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