First, a clarification. After getting an e-mail asking about the connection I asserted in an earlier post between the American Wind Energy Association and NREL writing a paper trying to discredit the research of Dr. Gabriel Calzada’s team about Spain’s “green jobs” debacle, I went back and checked. Indeed, it states “Reading the group’s press releases it does seem that they even had a hand in getting the President of the United States to sic a taxpayer-funded agency on a foreign academic study about a foreign country’s experience with its own policies, because said academic team and its writings threaten the welfare if the word gets out.”

Pending the results of a several-pronged exploration which includes a Freedom of Information Act request (and what I expect to be a DoE and its NREL affiliate resistant to strict compliance with the Act), that’s a little more direct than I would make the case at present. So allow me to clarify.

What I believe — based on a spate of missives coming from AWEA, particularly in the past two weeks — is that there is a relationship between AWEA and NREL, one that I believe we will find rather illuminating, particularly on the issue of NREL seeking to discredit those who exposed the economic fallout of Spain’s embrace of renewables (a nice Washington Examiner editorial on which is here). Already, the conflicting tales being offered by NREL and DoE reveal they haven’t yet agreed on their story about how exactly the federal government, in fairly clumsy and amateurish fashion, became engaged against a foreign academic team’s study of a foreign country’s policies. As indicated before, to confirm or deny this — just stay tuned.

Second, in going back to AWEA’s website, I notice that there have been some recent modifications in the wake of that above-cited post. For example, the effort against the Spanish and Danish studies have been sequestered with their own portal. More amusing, consider AWEA’s quiet little switch in said serial efforts, having gone back into the archives to amend their ritual preface of every invocation of the Institute for Energy Research as a “fossil-fuel industry funded group,” to the less sonorous “anti-clean energy industry funded group.” You may recall I had called them out on that little “mirror, mirror” misstep.

Somehow, it seems that it had never occurred to AWEA that they were a fossil-fuel funded industry group, as I detailed they most certainly are — and clearly to their chagrin. Or, maybe, they never thought anyone would draw attention to that fact.

Regardless, they now see the downside of having attention drawn to who they are and what their agenda means, so I’m pleased to see that we here at Planet Gore continue to be of service to advancing the debate.