Years ago a local newspaper in my area tried that - they set up a system at one of their remote sites to much fanfare and hoopla. Some years later after many thousands of dollars were spent keeping the thing going - the thing was quietly taken down. A friend who was an editor asked me how much money I thought it was ‘saving’ them on their monthly power bill. I guessed several hundred. He said ‘eleven cents’...
The reason people aren’t using wind power in some version or other is because it costs MORE to produce the energy than to buy it. You have to be a brain dead liberal to buy into the idea.
Plus, here in the south not only is there a benefit of more sunlight (good for solar power) than up north, there's also the weather aspect of us needing a lot of power during the summer to run our A/C -- which is the time of the year we get more sunlight. And the hottest days tend to be the sunniest days. So we get more free solar power at the times of the year we need it most. All in all, we usually get more solar power when we consume more power (usually, not always, hence I hate the idea of the grid depending on solar because we need the grid to work always, not just usually). That and other variables for mine and my wife's particular situation results in solar being a good ROI up to the point of fighting against the law of diminishing returns. (i.e. I'd spend too much money trying to have so much solar and battery capacity that I could be off grid, so I'll be happy at providing 80% of all the power I consume and buying only 20% of my power from the grid, mostly in 4 winter months November - February.)
I haven't read an honest breakdown of strengths and weaknesses like that for decentralized wind power. I have extended family who live a few miles from the coast and get more wind than I do, but nothing close to as much sun as I do. Thus, you'd think that wind power would be attractive for them. But we haven't recognized a pattern of there being more wind at times they need more power. And the cost per kW of pico wind turbine power was a bit steep IMHO (seems like it was $5K per kW last I checked).
“The reason people aren’t using wind power in some version or other is because it costs MORE to produce the energy than to buy it. You have to be a brain dead liberal to buy into the idea.”
Easy trigger at least know your facts from hear say. Wind turbines in Texas produce grid wholesale prices at $15 to $20 on the regular. Right now power in ERCOT is $80 per megawatt hour, last night when the wind was blowing hard it was $11 as there was more wind power than needed , and ERCOT was exporting power. Wind is low right now so gas turbines are burning $4 MMBTU fuel which has a break even price of $50 per MWh. You obviously are not a power industry professional if you were you would know this and have access to real time wholesale market data. Texas is not only the USA leader wind we are the world leader. We have so much wind at times it’s NEGATIVE per MWh ERCOT pays people to take it no thermal power source EVER will have negative rates since the fuel costs alone male that impossible. Wind once it’s capital costs are amortized can go negative and does fairly regularly. Wind pays it’s EROI off in under a year in class 4+ wind fields and has a overall EROI in the 40s for every BTU used to make the steel,concrete and polymers in them. Plenty of peer review sources for those answers.
This makes wind a net energy producer as it makes many times the energy invested in making it over it’s lifespan. Humans need net energy production in the long term as a species. Nuclear is the best , fossil fuels are an energy sink they can never be positive it’s physics. You will always burn more energy harvesting fossil fuels than what you net at the end. Gasoline is 1.4 to one it takes the energy equivalent of 1.5 gallons to put one gallon in your tank when you account for the energy used to drill, transport, refine, transport and distribution all fueled with the hydrocarbon itself it cannot be positive by definition. It only works because you are burning millions of years of fissile sunshine accumulation all at knce. One gallon of gasoline was over 10 tonnes of micro algae when it was deposited millions of years ago. The few percentages of carbon that made the trip from source rock to trap to well to refinery to pump was losses the whole way. If the oil industry was not subsidized prices would we drastically higher as well. No skin off my back it make me a wealthy man in my 40s who can never work again if I chose not too having passive income for life. At least know the facts.The level of scientific ignorance in the general population is staggering.
Wind also works gangbusters on the small scale I have a 50kw turbine on my homestead it made last month in two weeks of frontal storms and clouds 1900+ kWh well more than any of the structures could’ve used even at 67F in the bedrooms. I sold the excess along with the excess solar power from the panels. That turbine will pay for itself in under a year at this rate could be happier with it.
Oh and birds are killed by buildings,cars,and feral cats way more than turbines BY FAR. Facts not hear say.
Numbers ,data, peer review that’s how things are done.
Eliminate all subsidies including oil industry ones uncle sugar has no charter to give money to lobbyist cronies period and I am all for eliminating all subsidies.