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Companies that buy wind farms are generally large-cap investment firms or power utilities with tax liabilities - in order to utilize the production tax credits. They are not venture cap firms, but they do outsource construction to companies qualified to do so - even traditional utility companies outsource engineering/construction of their own power plants. Wind farm owners, however, are almost always separate from the utility buying the power, otherwise the PTCs do not apply, except in the case of power cooperatives - they sometimes own their own wind farms and keep the power as they are tax exempt entities with no use for the PTCs.

People in the view shed deal with very little noise as the noise of blowing wind in your ears is louder than that of the spinning wind turbines. Impact to migratory birds is unproven, and I doubt many people in the view shed sit in their front lawns eagerly anticipating the flight of migratory birds. Besides, people in the view shed of traditional power plants have to deal with other issues.

As for the actual footprint of wind turbines, it is generally a 50 x 50 concrete pad that is buried under a meter or two of topsoil. Cows can graize right up to the towers and farmers can farm in between them. 8000 acres may be the overall area covered by windfarms to meet this requirement in Colorado, but the actual footprint of the turbines is negligible and would generally not impact land usage.

It is interesting that you say impact to migratory birds is unproven. If the case, why are wind facilities agreeing to shut down turbines during key migration periods? Wouldn’t that be an expensive concession given a 30-35% average output to begin with?

However the companies are structured, my question continues to be “wind power at what price?”. If I lived in Colorado, I would question how much of the land in my state would need to be consumed by wind turbines to make a difference in our fossil fuel use and corresponding green house gases. Yes, you can graze cows between the towers. But stating that the facility would “generally not impact land usage” could only be true if the land was of no use beyond grazing a cow here and there. Perhaps that is the case – and no one would live between the towers nor fashion any other commercial or residential opportunity. Even “useless” land is pretty to look at.

That said, as you move eastward, the ridgelines of New Hampshire and Vermont are hardly as expansive nor as “useless” in the opinion of many. You clearly have knowledge of the energy business. Do you have reason to believe that wind power can provide average output (minus any backup systems) to make a dent in the 20 million barrels we consume daily? If yes, would all of North Dakota need to be overrun with turbines to make that dent?