[Frankawitz]

I am looking at building a proto type windmill where could I get some money to help with this project, I am looking at building them for Homeowners to supplement with their electric bill, these are small units, they will be mounted on the house. anybody know of Goverment funds or grants I could check into. Thanks

[TaxBait]

Originally Posted by JimmyInGreatLakes

Well, the problem is, you wouldn't be afforded a choice. You'd ante up the wind energy charge in addition to the charges that allow for 24-hour pothole repairs.

24 hour pothole patrols??? Once a year we get maybe 25% of the worst ones filled. And they don't even clean out the hole to get a decent patch or sweep the excess off the road. It winds up all over the cars and chipping windshields.

I was just making a satirical point. An investment in future supplies of clean energy, free from the influence of commodity traders and global markets, has more value to me than other "investments" I'm forced to make. We (myself excluded) are willing to waste $100,000 educating every single dropout so they can continue to feed off the system for the rest of their life, but can't spend a fraction of that to help a productive household to become energy independent.

I would prefer renewable energy be promoted in more creative ways. Government incentives should be designed to benefit consumers directly. If someone offered me 10 years of electricity for an up-front charge of $10,000 I'd invest in that. We already pay separately for distribution. But government would never stand for it. They'd insist on taxing me for the electricity plus my "ownership" in the wind farm. They'd rather throw money and tax breaks at some energy corporation to keep the status quo (consumers pay market rate plus guaranteed profit and old-school union wages and benefits for everyone involved). I say bypass these dinosaurs and let the market participate directly. Like most technology advancements, there will be many early adopters willing to pay a little more.

But they won't invest if government penalizes them for their good deed. I'd build a wind generator today if I didn't already know the tax man would assess it for 3 times what it cost to build. It wouldn't surprise me if property taxes on the system ended up costing me 5 cents/KW hr. If Governor Grandtheft really cared about promoting alternative energy all she we need to do is declare all clean energy to be tax free (property and sales). That doesn't cost the state anything up-front. After the technology matures and the high initial costs come down, then taxes could be phased in. Even then, they should be per-BTU based taxes, not dollar based taxes. That gives the advantage to cheaper, more polluting sources. It also leads to screwball schemes like carbon taxes and credits. Government just can't resist robbing Peter to pay Paul. They need that pot of money to hand out to feel powerful. All the founding fathers needed was a pen.