And they can take them down, fix them and put them back up. The owners of that project are choosing not to for one reason or another. Like anything else, the people playing the game are the ones causing problems. It’s no different than any other industry.

If wind is so good and profitable let it stand on it's own.

Ok, let me text Donald. Maybe I can catch him on Twitter.

This is Trumps idea?

my big ??? is when the company who built them and managnes them goes bankrupt who pays to remove them. just a little side note, the coal power plant in sutherland ne, has to stay powered up at all times to provide power to the grid if the towers cant produce enough, so where is the real savings at your still burning coal to and since wind has the priority for power the coal plants just sit there and wait while still being fired up.

It cant stand on it's own, but neither can ethanol .

We just chased some of those people out of here 2 years ago. Fought like dogs...tons of research done, our entire community said NO WAY. (We see enough of the bad things these things cause/create in other areas. No thanks. Several people sold because they were so fearful of their property values tanking) Spend an hour watching youtube videos about wind turbines, and not the garbage the companies put out.

Nor solar

I'm not arguing for or against wind turbines. But I'm going to take a chance and help folks understand a little about electrical use and billing...

Ridge Runner look at your electric bill. Your billing is based on kilowatt hours used...

A kilowatt hour is when you consume 1000 watts over an hour period...

250 watts consumed per hour for 4 hours equals 1 kilowatt hour... 500 watts for 2 hours equals 1 kilowatt hour and so on...

Look at your electric bill and see how many kilowatt hours you used in a given month. Then divide that number by 720. 720 is derived by 24 hours x 30 days, which equals 720 hours.

So for ease of math let's say you used 1440 kilowatt hours last month. Divide 1440 by 720 and your house used (on average) 2000 watts per hour. 2000 watts is 2 kilowatts.

A megawatt is 1 million watts, or 1000 kilowatts.

So if a wind turbine is putting out 2.5 megawatts an hour it could run 1250 houses at a time if they average 2000 watts an hour of use.

That's a simplistic way of figuring it. And there are a lot of variables involved... But that's the jist of it.

Mike

Our area was able to defeat a proposed wind power installation. In my opinion, we were lucky because the area had a lot of large land owners who were not in favor of the project. It surprises me that so many people on here are willing to accept the complete alteration of their daytime and nighttime views for some money. As pointed out above, the power generated by the wind requires 100% backup by an alternate source of electricity. Wind installations are licensed by whatever state authority has jurisdiction. The state, ie taxpayers, will foot the bill for the removal of the towers. As mentioned by a previous poster, the towers can absolutely be taken down and repaired. What he failed to mention is the repair company will need to move in a crane similar to what was used in the original construction, at a similar cost to the original construction. People who have lived through the construction phase can detail the problems associated with this.

I would like to see a wiND mill produce energy needed to make another windmill.

And on the other side of the coin... How much power produced by a coal-fired plant goes back into running that plant? How much was needed to build it? To mine the coal? To ship the coal?

Mike

We don't have as many near us as some of you do but there is one large field about 12 miles away. There would have been two other areas near by but the war was huge and people still won't talk to each other and many are neighbors and family members. Ours are the 396 foot tall ones. The main thing now after 8 years plus in is the jealousy by those whose sites did not get picked. At first is was all about yes or no and bad environment etc. etc. Now it is more about those that get the royalties as people have learned they are not as bad as most thought and now they wish they could have several thousand per year coming in. One of the farmers I know had land spread over a nice distance and wound up with 5 of them and gave up 7.5 acres of land for about 30- 40 K per year.

Bryce

Good luck. Or enthanol producing the energy to put that crop in, and create that fertilizer, and forge that tractor .

We have one about 20 miles west of us. It is the reason we were adamant we didn't want one in our neighborhood. The anecdotal evidence from our area is the opposite of yours Bryce. Many of the people who leased wish they hadn't.

Don't forget about when they Decommission the Wind Turbines. That Concrete pad that the Turbine sits on , is several feet thick. The Decommissioning typically only states that they remove the first 3 to 5 feet of the concrete foundation, not the whole thing. They put the concrete foundation in, they should be required to remove the WHOLE FOUNDATION!!

And clean up the waste.
We are flaring Nat gas off as we produce more than we have a use for and it is much cleaner than coal can ever be made. We can't end coal now, but we should be moving to reduce it's use in power production as much as possible.

Theyre trying to dump turbines in the Sandhills now. Only ppl in favor are the ones getting paid for it.
They have a fulltime employee in town pushing for it. He drives a gas powered car.

Liberals will always support them...and Obama was the best ever.

The thumb of Michigan is packed full of them. I went camping with the family and it was pretty cool seeing huge windmills in every direction.