[Buckeye McFrog]

Saw a stat the other day that there are 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in this country, just rusting away across the fruited plain.

The minute the subsidies dry-up the people who own them no longer want to be bothered maintaining them.

[Vigilanteman]

There are a few areas where wind turbines make sense. They usually have climates with steady wind and often lack of factors which shorten the life of the tubines such as low rainfall, outside paths of migratory birds, etc.

The Palm Springs, California area gets quite a bit of their energy needs from wind turbines.

[Tenacious 1]

The minute the subsidies dry-up the people who own them no longer want to be bothered maintaining them.

Almost. It's more like, they can't AFFORD to maintain them. The maintenance costs alone on those machines would necessitate lots more revenue to keep them going. That means rate hikes. Most local governments won't approve rate hikes until the grid is dependent on them. This is starting to happen and will get worse the longer they are running and the longer the government subsidizes the maintenance of them.