The Renewable Energy Scam Must Stop

Dear Editor,

According to the US Energy Information Administration data for 2024, wind energy accounted for about 3% and solar power about 4% of Wisconsin’s electrical energy supply. Industrial wind turbines (IWT) and industrial solar panels are unreliable, intermittent sources of electricity that are worthless to industry and consumers. These supposed “free” “green” energy sources produce power about only 30 percent of the time. This requires a reliable back-up source (usually fossil fuels) for the other 70 percent of the electricity that is not produced when there is no wind or sun.  The cost of maintaining the 70 percent back-up power source may be almost as much or more than the income from the power these wind turbines or solar panels produce. This negates any “green” profits, which means that there is no such thing as “free” energy.

With the income produced by the “green” wind turbines and solar panels gone, consumed, eliminated by the cost to maintain the back-up energy, there is NO money left to defray or cover the cost of producing or installing the turbines and panels. There is also NO money to cover the cost of deconstructing and disposing of aging equipment.  There is NO money to cover the damage from defective IWT blades such as the Red Barn turbine blade failures. There is NO money to cover IWT fires or clean up the mess from storm damage, which can contaminate prime farm ground or oceans and beaches. 

You, the citizen electric rate payers, foot the bill for all these uncovered costs and extra expenses for the “green” subsidies with your tax dollars and increased electric rates.  This does not include the cost of damage to human health, the environment, and quality of life from the negative effects of the wind turbines (i.e. shadow flicker, flashing red lights, loss of view shed, audible and inaudible sound waves, interference with med flight operations, etc.).

Electricity produced by “green” industrial wind and solar is the MOST expensive, the MOST harmful to human health, and the MOST damaging to the environment. 

Wisconsin representatives and senators, who passed legislation that allowed three unelected Wisconsin Public Service commissioners to trash our unique southwest Wisconsin Driftless area, need to step in to help us—NOW!  They allow subsidy-seeking parasites such as Invenergy, Next Era, Pattern, Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy, and others like them, to have free reign to deposit their garbage near our homes and on our farms. These companies are evil, and any individual’s or organization’s acceptance of money from them is like taking it from the devil.  Why would any sane person go through all the trouble to make and install these 650-foot wind turbines and destroy prime farm ground covering it with solar panels if these devices only work 30 percent of the time with no profit and negligible power production? The answer is stupidity and/or greed (i.e. rate hikes and huge taxpayer subsidies).

Future generations will look back and see the installation of industrial wind turbines and solar panels and big steel high-power transmission towers as one of the colossal blunders committed by this generation.  The disillusioned people who work for pseudo-environmental organizations such as Renew Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society, unfortunately, support this industrial garbage, which is causing the destruction of the environment and wildlife they purport to save.

More people need to get the facts about this green energy scam from real science, not political science. Contact your legislators and tell them to put an end to this foolishness. 

George A. Schwarzmann Jr.       

Belmont Township, WI