[backwoods-engineer]

Wind energy IS nothing but hot air. I am in the utility business, so I know what I am talking about here. You cannot generate baseload power from wind generation. That is power that MUST be available 24x7x365. Wind generators are notoriously unreliable, especially those with hydraulic transmissions. Even the greenies don't like wind turbines, because of the low-frequency noise and the number of birds sliced and diced.

Wind energy is going nowhere. It is another feel-good "green" luxury we can no longer afford.

[DTogo]

I’m not claiming that wind can generate baseload power, it can’t. But there is free energy in the wind that can obviously be harnessed. The harnessing isn’t free, but the energy is.

[okie01]

Wind energy is going nowhere. It is another feel-good "green" luxury we can no longer afford.

It is especially telling that, whenever a wind farm has outlived its 25-year federal subsidy, it is immediately abandoned -- as "no longer economically feasible".

"Wind energy" is a chimera. Practically useless in all but a few special circumstances.

[Parmy]

Any knowledge on the incidence of maintenance for these monstrosities?

[Mad Dawgg]

"Wind energy is going nowhere."

I agree. As a source of power to feed the grid it will be for show mostly.

However I could see individuals putting up small units to subsidize their electricity needs especially if they invest in a low wattage illumination system like LEDs and such but then only if the systems warrant the cost of installing them.

I watched a doc on Wind Power called: Windfall. Most of the big units are heavily subsidized by Uncle Sam and they have all sorts of issues on the downside. For instance the really big units look like the blades are turning slowly, however the tip speed can exceed 140 MPH (according to the doc) Ice flung from the blades can be a problem so you need some fairly large "setback" rules so roads and walkways and private property is far enough away so as not to be hit by "ice missiles" coming off the blades.

There is also the constant noise issue of the blades and the turbines. then there is the sun hitting the blades at certain times of the day which gives you a strobe effect. It doesn't sound like anything but people living near the units say it drives you batty after just a few minutes of experiencing it.

[supercat]

You cannot generate baseload power from wind generation.

There are a variety of applications which could scale their demand up and down pretty quickly based upon fluctuating supply, especially of there was an efficient means by which the devices could vary their "priority" and be billed different amounts for electricity that they used when the grid was super-saturated with supply, versus electricity that they used when the grid did not have such an excess (which should be more expensive). For example, if the water level in a tank is supposed to remain within a certain range (e.g. 50%-100% full), cheap electricity could be used to pump water even when it's near the top of its range, while more expensive electricity would only be used if it's near the bottom. If a burst of cheap electricity becomes available when the tank is 80% full, topping it off would increase by 20% the amount of water that could be removed before it would be necessary to use expensive electricity (and if bursts of cheap electricity become available often enough, it may seldom be necessary to use the expensive electricity at all).

[upcountryhorseman]

You got that right! Also, these turbines can only stand
wind up to about 50 mph after that they are supposed to turn themselves off or they will tear themselves apart.
Also, their gearboxes are notoriously bad.