Jerome, you are wrong in saying that the authors of this piece are putting scare "quotes" around words like 'renewable'. Try to explain with the pattern of "quotes" in these quotations, using your "argument":

...electricity from "wind farms" produce few local economic benefits ...
...landowners who lease their land may be "winners" but their neighbors are the "losers."
DOE's totally unrealistic "goal"...
...virtually no "capacity" value.
...lease payments to landowners, and "other" economic activities.

Clearly, they are using many of the "quotes" for "emphasis" in order to display their level of "literacy", or for some "other" innocent reason.

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.