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You are correct, abandonment is a less likely scenario today. More likely, the sites are sold outright to a power company. Again, the power companies are required to buy into these wind plants (or trade the green tags) in order to satisfy laws in the States where they sell their product.

The investment companies that build wind sites are more like venture firms. They raise the money for the projects, outsource construction, do a nice sales job on rural communities on why they are doing right by the world and how their taxes will drop with the revenue stream, and then dissolve when the project is sold. Folks in the view shed are left to deal with the noise, the blade flicker, the impacts to migratory birds and other wildlife habitats, the limits on access to the area, and probably higher electricity rates.

While I understand that fossil fuels are finite, I do not believe renewables will make a difference - Unless we are willing to sacrifice huge regions of the US.

In the case of Colorado, the Platt River Power Authority, which supplies 5% of the electricity in the state, would need to build a wind facility that covers 8000 acres in order to meet the 10% requirement should the constitutional amendment pass. I do wonder whether the folks in Colorado realize this fact.

(I will reread the report again and look for the bias. Since I agreed with the premise, I am afraid I didn't notice words like "insidious". :)

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.