"If you want something from Congress, there are probably only about four shopping days left until Christmas, because most members of the House and Senate seem likely to go home on Friday. One big item on the green list is an extension of the production tax credit for wind energy, and the industry’s trade association, the American Wind Energy Association, released a dire study on Monday about what will happen without it."

"The association commissioned a study from Navigant Consulting, which found that next year there will be 78,000 jobs supported by wind, but that this would fall to 41,000 in 2013 without an extension of the tax credit, which is 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. (That credit is rather large, considering that the average sale price of a kilowatt-hour is about 11 cents.)

Extending the tax credit to 2016 would create another 17,000 jobs, the consulting firm predicted."

Matthew L. Wald reports for the New York Times' Green blog December 12, 2011.
[2]