http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...cle_363d8812-4a01-5895-809c-36583f22dd0b.html "A bill proposed by six state lawmakers would charge utilities a penalty if they use wind or solar energy to provide Wyoming consumers with electricity. If Senate File 71 were law, there would be six permissible resources for generating electricity for Wyomingites, including natural gas and coal. Wind and solar are not on the list, except for individual use. Utilities would have a year to reach the first compliance milestone of the bill, in which each company would have to get 95 percent of its Wyoming-sold energy from the approved resources. The following year, 2019, companies must reach 100 percent compliance." Wtf? What is this, some kind of reverse carbon tax?
well you know how the green lobby and climate change believers spend huge amounts of money to penalize gas and coal and Bane Shift as @DarkJello sometimes claims ? well he is wrong. or at the very least has the roles of the actors mixed up.
The specific bill in question: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf Reading through it now, maybe comment later. EDIT: Having some difficulty finding "W.S. 18 37 - 16 - 101" to see what the reference is specifically regarding net metering systems (I'm assuming that has to do with selling back energy that flowed onto the grid from private generators and the like, or something similar). Anyway... yeah, it looks like an (anti-renewable) cap and trade program, though much harsher than most similar legislation in certain ways, at least that I'm aware of (requires 100% "eligible energy" production minus procured credits [which need to be at least 10 years] by 2019, 95% in 2018). The full list is Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, Hydroelectric, Nuclear, and the aforementioned referenced metering thing. As the article @Sokolov posted it seems to be an inverse subsidy or incentive to use specific energy sources. Most likely a result of influence from companies which produce energy from those resources, and maybe some hysteria about "saving jobs" as well, not sure what the political climate in Wyoming is like these days, really.
Pretty much. i.e. There may be Solar/Wind energy in the system due to buying excess energy from customers.
Personally, this doesn't bother me much from a "government power" perspective. I believe government has a vital role to play in these matters to guide development in a direction that best serves the public good. My problem with this particular bill is following: I believe it is intended to benefit a special interest group at the expense of the greater good, which is antithetical to what government should be doing It is brought forth by politicians who espouse the virtues of individual freedom, the free market and small government - which this is not, this should be the complete opposite of what they want to do, if they followed the principles that they claim to believe in (and these are the ways they would argue against carbon tax, of course)
This reminds of the story of a guy in Minnesota, who was forced to remove wind turbines from his property. According to his son the state had a personal vendetta against him, but this only makes it sound even more like some Stalinistic regime. #AmericaLandOfTheFree
That's not the whole story. He applied for a permit, was rejected, and still started construction. http://www.snopes.com/was-a-minnesota-man-jailed-for-having-a-windmill-on-his-property/
