Their real purpose is to pump taxpayer subsidy dollars into the pockets of landowners, mfgrs, and politicians.
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Precisely. You nailed it.
Wind is turned into money — for a few.
Years ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article by a well known investor. (I forget who)
He was asked to buy into a large offshore Atlantic wind farm. The investment looked great with a good ROI. At the last minute, he asked his staff to rerun the numbers with the government subsidies removed.
ROI went to <1%. He said if one unit got damaged or had a problem, he would lose money on his investment and thus he chose not to invest.
Coal is awesome. Wind is useless. Solar is good for limited purposes.
A company I used to work for supplied a solar manufacturer. I worked closely with them. If solar is so great, why is the plant on the grid? They had a two big plants, one in Michigan and one in Mexico. They could make their own panels at cost, yet they used none. When foreign subsidies dried up, the company died.