Bump
Plus these monstrosities kill a half million birds EVERY YEAR.
Wind power is nonsense. If it was viable, private industry would be developing it for a profit!
Time to eliminate the subsidies to wind and solar power. Then they’ll either stand or fall on their own merits.
$109 per megawatt hour for wind power while 0bama and his EPA run coal generating plants out of business, little wonder he needs to keep raising debt ceiling.
Don’t forget the icing on the cake, destruction of wildlife habitat, ugly structures destroying the view, and the absolute best, the slaughter of thousand upon thousands of raptors and migratory birds! I love that here in taxifornia they are banning lead bullets to save wildlife but the mayhem caused by windmills is OK because they are “earth” friendly.
This has always been the problem with Wind power. It is just not cost effective at all. I’m all for energy options but wind especially the idea of fields of wind turbines is just dumb outside of limited applications. There is a huge cost of maintenance. There is huge risk especially if you put these things in areas like the great plains that are highly prone to tornados etc. Sure there are some big business guys who love the idea because these things are a guaranteed cash cow for them that goes on forever.
You just can’t beat coal and natural gas where energy production is concerned and todays coal plants in the US are extremely clean that is if you don’t buy into the stupid CO2 hysterics. Sure we can’t use coal and natural gas forever but we have hundreds of years to work things out and the last thing that is going to help is to neuter the US economy
which will slow technological development not increase it.
That’s $1.09 per kW/hr! FReepers can look at their electricity bills and see how ridiculously expensive $1.09 per kW/hr is. I think 12 to 14 cents per kW/hr is a typical rate in most areas of the country.
I love to point out the poor results of wealth redistributionist programs, like EBT cards. However, there’s a whole different group of people who are also on welfare. I’m talking about all the industries, like wind power, sugar, and ethanol, that are sucking at government’s teat. If an industry is thoroughly dependent on subsidies to survive, than it’s an industry that deserves to die (or evolve into something that can pay its own way).
Just like welfare programs for the poor, government subsidies allow businesses to become lazy. In the long term, they rob our nation by rewarding businesses for being impractical and inefficient. Who knows what improvements, what amazing new technologies, will never be developed due to government interference in the free market?
But it’s worth it because without one watt of electricity being produced,
windmills accomplish the primary goal of the left -
making them feel good as “good people” because they “care about the erf”.
Good name for it.
What a bunch of garbage. Saying wind energy "costs" taxpayers $12Bn/year because of the Production Tax Credit is like saying homeowners "cost" taxpayers $[ ]Bn/yr because of the mortgage deduction.
And if wind power costs $109MWh, why are so many wind farms in the US Midwest responding to power off-take solicitations from utilities with prices in the $25-35/MWh price range, FLAT over a 25 year period??
Shhhh, here is a secret. Everyone of those wind turbines are full of copper wire.
You did not hear it from me.
109 is just barely ~50% greater than 72. How is that nearly double?!
I have traveled in areas of TX, OK, KS, NE, IL, MA and perhaps several other states with wind power turbine installations. What surprised me was the amount of time and the percentage of the turbines that were inactive. I remember never seeing any spinning turbines when flying over IL. There is no viable storage method to store generated energy when wind is sufficient for operation, to provide for time periods when it is not. Truly a stupid, costly idea providing payback to the corrupt political power taking the taxpayers into un-survivable debt, along with many other subsidized debacles.
It is time for TTU to study the effects of these unsightly propellors on the weather downstream of these monstrosities.
Energy is removed from the moving air mass and converted into electrical energy — work is being done just like in an expander/generator — downstream air should be cooler than upstream, etc. What effect does it have on ground level temperatures?