Compared to oil and gas, offshore wind is 125 times better for taxpayers

[marmar]

Compared to oil and gas, offshore wind is 125 times better for taxpayers
A new report finds per-acre revenue from offshore wind blows oil and gas out of the water




(Grist) Not only is offshore wind power better for the planet compared to oil and gas, it’s also better for taxpayers. That’s according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy research institute.

“Americans are getting significantly more return on investment from offshore wind energy lease sales than they are from oil and gas lease sales” per acre, said Michael Freeman, a conservation policy analyst for the Center and author of the report.

Offshore leases are essentially patches of publicly-owned waters rented out by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for energy production — a process governed by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. The money made from these leases goes to the U.S. Treasury Department, and, through public program funding, back into the pockets of taxpayers.

From 2019 to 2021, the average winning bid from offshore oil and gas lease sales was $47 per acre. By contrast, the average winning bid for a wind lease sale was 125 times higher — just over $5,900 per acre. And that number is likely to get even higher given the American wind industry is still in its relative infancy, said Jenny Rowland-Shea, the Director of Public Lands for the Center for American Progress. ..............(more)

https://grist.org/energy/compared-to-oil-and-gas-offshore-wind-is-125-times-better-for-taxpayers/

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. They ought to factor clean-up costs into the equation.

Apportion a % of total clean-up costs incurred annually by the USG/Taxpayers into the equation. It ought to cost a whole lot more per acre for an oil lease, then a wind lease, IMHO.

[TigressDem]

3. And permanent damage IE "oops" on pipeline that broke Mississippi headwaters aquifirs

https://www.startribune.com/enbridge-crews-punctured-three-aquifers-during-line-3-oil-pipeline-construction-dnr-says/600158140/

Enbridge crews punctured three aquifers during Line 3 oil pipeline construction, DNR says
The damage to groundwater resources was more extensive than previously disclosed.
By Jennifer Bjorhus Star Tribune
March 21, 2022

Combined, the punctures led to nearly 300 million gallons of groundwater flowing to the surface, with the most serious breach occurring near the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation in St. Louis County. That rupture alone discharged more than 200 million gallons of groundwater — and it continues to flow out.

[TigressDem]

4. Tar Sands

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-keystone-pipeline

These sands contain bitumen, a gooey type of petroleum that can be converted into fuel. It’s no small feat extracting oil from tar sands, and doing so comes with steep environmental and economic costs.

Tar sands extraction is a marginal business in the best of conditions. As the financial risks stack up, companies are reconsidering throwing millions of dollars at these projects.

What changed? Extracting and processing tar sands has always been a tough business. Bitumen, the fuel component, is nearly solid underground. Producers have to heat up prodigious amounts of water to melt the stuff and get it to flow toward the surface. Surface-level deposits are less technically challenging to access but no greener. These projects look very much like strip mines and have some of the same environmental impacts, which include diverting and polluting rivers and streams, causing heavy erosion, and disturbing vast areas of soil. The ponds of leftover toxic waste threaten millions of migrating birds, and studies have identified health problems in the nearby indigenous communities linked to pollution.

[TigressDem]

2. And keep working on the bird safety... Florescent paint is a thing.

https://www.bsbo.org/responsible-wind-energy.html


First, the idea of painting turbine blades to reduce bird deaths was published in 2003 by the University of Maryland in conjunction with National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. This study set the groundwork for the principles behind the Norwegian study.

The conclusions of the Norwegian study were that death rates were reduced by over 70% at the painted turbines; but this needs to be tempered by the facts of the study. First of all, it was a small study, looking at fatality results of only four painted turbines and four adjacent unpainted ones. The authors of the study readily admit the small size of the study warrants that the study be repeated with a larger sampling of turbines in order to verify their results.



MORE STUDIES and SMARTER applications.

Yellow and Black or Red and Black are instinctively seen as warning colors.

These can have florescent paint as well so there is night visibility.

AND let's go all out. Put some tiny bearings around the edge, it will add a tiny rattle which is also a warning in nature.

Heck off shore, play heavy metal or put led lights on it to mimic a sky to water lightening strike.

The point for bird, bat safety is they need to know something solid is there so they don't smash into it.




BUT we still have glass windows that they fly into and no one is banning those.

[Probatim]

5. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industry was never about taxpayer returns.

It's about corporate welfare. If they actually cared about returns and factored in some of the items mentioned above, we'd be 100% renewable in every possible application.