Is it considered a Freudian slip when someone connected to the wind industry accidentally tells the truth about wind’s strange bedfellow arrangement with coal?  I’ll have to check with my analyst?

Anyway, the title of the post came from Edison Mission Energy manager of federal affairs, Matt Hill.  The quote appeared today in a Cumberland MD Times News article about the proposed Pinnacle wind plant in Mineral County WV.

To put Mr. Hill’s comment in context, here is what the article stated: In addition to wind energy, Edison also is involved in the coal business and has operations in Grant Town, W.Va., and in Pennsylvania and Illinois.  “It’s a mutual benefit type thing,” said Hill of wind and coal energies.

Since wind proponents have clearly stated that wind plants will eliminate coal plants, you might wonder how there could be a mutual benefit.  I’m not sure what benefit Mr. Hill was speaking of, but I know what Jon Boone told me – “Despite the bellyfeel assertion that wind is an environmental savior, it is in fact an environmental wrecking ball. Contrary to the proposition wind can back down the coal industry, in most areas of the country it may actually increase coal consumption.”

Further, in Mr. Boone’s “Overblown,” he states that, “contrary to the carefully cultivated perception that wind is David to coal’s Goliath, the record shows that people and corporations heavily involved with coal, natural gas, and oil are also involved with wind. In the 1990s, Enron’s Ken Lay, helped by then–Texas governor George W. Bush (today a leading wind booster), resurrected wind technology from the tomb to which steam power had consigned it. Giant energy corporations swaddled in coal and oil production, such as Florida Power & Light, General Electric, BP, AES, and Siemens, are all intensely invested in wind. They claim to be “diversifying their energy portfolios.” But do they also expect wind to reduce their fossil fuel market share?”

So, it appears Mr. Hill is correct – coal and wind energies do have a mutually benefitting relationship.  Heavy government subsidies and nonsensical “green energy” goals provide profits to the developers of the high cost/low producing wind toys while insuring that the coal producers continue to profit from equal or greater demand.  And if the company you work for has investments in both, as does Mr. Hill’s … well … how cool is that?

Oh … another sad note for those of us in the mountains resulting from wind and coal’s “mutual” benefit – along with its many other failings, wind actually adds to the horrors of mountain top-removal.

By the way, for any of you local folks looking for the construction jobs promised, the article says you can contact the Indiana contractor through your local trade union office.  That is, I guess, if you’re in the union.

For you folks not in the union also looking for work … well, they didn’t seem to mention you.

The article did say that, “Throughout the meeting, representatives from U.S. Wind Force, Edison and White encouraged citizens to call them with any questions or concerns that they might have.”  Unfortunately, they didn’t mention how to do that.