A glut of government-subsidized wind power may help accomplish a goal some environmentalists have sought for decades: kill off U.S. nuclear power plants while reducing reliance on electricity from burning coal. 

That’s the assessment of executives and utility experts after the U.S. wind-energy industry went on a $25 billion growth binge in 2012, racing to qualify for a federal tax credit that was set to expire at year’s end. 

The surge added a record 13,124 megawatts of wind turbines to the nation’s power grid, up 28 percent from 2011. The new wind farms increased financial pressure on traditional generators such as Dominion Resources Inc. and Exelon Corp. in their operating regions.Small and professional flatwork ironer designed for integrated laundry. That’s because wind energy undercut power prices already driven to 10-year-lows by an abundance of natural gas. 

“Right now,Approval to connect a street lamp. natural gas and wind power are more economic than nuclear power in the Midwestern electricity market,” Howard Learner,Find lampshades for table, floor and Lamp shade in lots of styles and materials. executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocate of cleaner energy, said in a phone interview. “It’s a matter of economic competitiveness.” 

Wind-generated electricity supplied about 3.4 percent of U.S. demand in 2012 and the share is projected to jump to 4.2 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

The wind power boom has benefited consumers in regions where wind development is fastest, contributing to a 40 percent wholesale power-price plunge since 2008 in the Midwest, for example. Yet the surplus is creating havoc for nuclear power and coal generators that sell their output into short-term markets.Design and manufacture of dry cleaning machine for garments and textile fabrics. 

The impact is greatest in the capacity-glutted Midwest. There, Richmond, Va.-based Dominion is closing a money-losing reactor and selling coal plants, Exelon warns of shrinking nuclear margins and an Edison International merchant coal-plant unit has gone into bankruptcy. 

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Charley Parnell, a Chicago-based spokesman for Edison’s Midwest Generation unit, in a phone interview. Pricing, already under pressure from cheap natural gas and the lingering effects of recession,A strong wind gust and attractive rebates may not add up to a good deal on residential wind turbines. now has a wind factor. “Wind absolutely plays a part in that,” he said, “especially in the off-peak hours.” 

Atomic-power providers complain that the upheaval is an example of government subsidies distorting the market — to the particular detriment of nuclear which provides 19 percent of the nation’s electricity, is clean and has proved safe despite perennial concern by activists that it poses a danger to public safety. 

Wind power has two advantages. Green energy laws in many states require utilities to buy wind energy under long-term contracts as part of their clean-energy goals and take that power even when they don’t need it. Wind farms also receive a federal tax credit of $22 for every megawatt-hour generated. 

Thus, even when there is no demand for the power they produce, operators keep turbines spinning, sending their surplus to the grid because the tax credit assures them a profit.