The theory goes that smokers are a net benefit to society. Before Greenbang gets her pigtails pulled by anti-smoking lobbyists, she is talking on a purely economic basis: the money earned in tax is greater than the money the state pays out in smoking related diseases.

Ladies and gentleman, Greenbang has found the new cigarettes: it’s US wind farms. Yes, according to GE Finance, US wind farms put in more to the tax pot through “the projects’ income, vendors’ profits and individual workers’ wages” they generate than they take out through federal tax credits.

How much more, I hear you ask? Why $250 million more, according to GE.

The timing of the report seems a little fortuitous to Greenbang, coming as it does as said federal tax credit scheme is set to expire. And, no doubt, totally unrelated to the fact that GE Financial Services renewables portfolio, worth some $3 billion, is 80 percent made up of wind.

Still, according to the study, wind generates $6 million per year in local property taxes, $15 million annually in state income taxes on wages and profits during construction and $1.5 million per year in taxes while operating as well as 17,000 construction-related jobs and 1,600 long-term operations-related jobs just from farms built last year.

• Roofer, insulator and electrician? Green needs you!
• GE’s $12 billion wind turbine order backlog
• US gets more free cash for home solar?
• Cleantech funding hit new heights in ’08
• Sainsbury’s signs wind farm electricity deal
• UK urged to ditch ‘unreliable’ wind turbines for nuclear power
• Environment Agency to build 80 wind turbines
• Rising costs blowing Centrica’s wind farm plans off track?
• Offshore wind farms key to European energy ‘supergrid’
• 10 reasons to watch Vattenfall as a company