So after President Obama got caught out, exposed on his claim that Spain was a model of success for centrally planning the ‘green’ economy, on his stump speech he simply swapped out Spain for Denmark.

Just as some brave Spaniards did, some Danish experts put the lie to that one, too.

So does today’s news that, when reporting solid 3d quarter results with record orders booked, windmill giant Vestas also reported it is closing plants and firing 3000 workers.

Such are the perils with phony industries that only exist to satisfy subsidies and mandates that only exist to satisfy the constituency, and whose operations therefore respond to political dictates, not market considerations.

It is amid this that we see even two of Virginia’s own “renewable economy”-obsessed congressmen joining with radical anti-energy crusaders on an October letter opposing a more efficient coal mining practice called “mountaintop removal”, which not only provides 11% of our coal supply but also happens to keep the miners above ground. But, to these folks, driving more miners underground is no different than driving oil and gas workers into space-age operations in deep water. 

Denmark still burns as much coal as it did before fetishizing windmills in the search for a modern identity, but is now playing expensive and harmful havoc with its economy with all of this preening. Meanwhile, state-side, coal-state congressmen and senators seek to emulate the folly while also working to strangle our domestic supply of a resource with which we are blessed with having centuries of supply.