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They provide very expensive electricity when and where it is not needed.

Really? What's the price of wind energy, and don't they use electricity on Cape Cod?

The price of wind energy is comprised of the construction cost and maintenance costs of the infrastructure. Of course coal facilities also require comparable infrastructure AND require coal. The wind farms get wind for "free". Unfortunately, the wind doesn't show up when people want it, i.e. during peak demand for electricity.

Certainly people use electricity on Cape Cod as everywhere else in the world. But in New England, peak generation season is during the summertime when people run their ACs. Few people in New England use electricity to heat their homes in the winter, when the wind farms would produce their peak electricity. In other words, the marginal electricity is generated when it is not needed.

The WHERE it is not needed refers to the fact that there is plenty of electrical demand in the Pacific Northwest for aluminum production or in the Southeast, even in the warm winters.....but NOT in New England.

Costs for electricity generation are generally quoted per kilowatt-hour. Unfortunately, the costs that are quoted for wind farms are generally B.S. They overstate the benefits of wind by quoting cost of generation as maximum possible peak generation as opposed to when the electricity is actually needed. Most wind farms can't and don't ever generate their peak, because the electricity is more expensive than that available from coal plants and is not needed. Thus the surplus wind generated electricity is not needed and is never used.

If it were not for federal subsidies this proposed wind farm would not be built. The subsidy is equal to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour as a production tax credit.

Wind power probably costs 2 to 3 cents more per kilowatt hour than coal on average. The numbers are very very hard to determine. The American Wind Energy Association, which is a very PRO wind group thinks that New England wind is about 6 to 7 cents per kilowatt hour. I think they are a penny shy. So call it 7.5 cents per killowatt hour.

Coal is about half that, maybe a little more. So figure wind power in New England is TWICE as expensive as coal.

If you like wind power....then more power to you. But I hate to see my tax dollars wasted on your pet projects, just as I'm sure you would hate to see your tax dollars wasted on mine.

jas3