If you are collecting the check you are for them...

If you are not you are against them, but they have built some beautiful schools in TEXAS with wind power money...

I would take all they want to put up, as long as their check is good...

I know one fellow who bought a ranch, 10 sections, wind towers came in one year and he paid for it in about 4 months... I figure he had some inside information... The old lady that's husband sold the ranch still lives there and there is a wind tower about 200 yards from the house. But, she can't hear it thunder anyway...

Self-sustaining??? Never happen.
Our local VA had a wind turbine installed. It ran about 5 or 6 years and broke down. In that time, they estimated they have saved about $60K in electricity. It cost them over 1M to have it built. The company they bought it from went broke; are no longer in business. An estimate from another company was over $250K to get it up and running again. You don't have to be Albert Einstein to realize what you will save in electricity versus the cost they would have invested were they to get it up and running again, it's a no-win situation. It's been sitting idle about 10+ years now.

One off installations don’t pencil out. What does pencil out are commercial installations. There are more single turbine installations in this country that are in a state of disrepair than I care to know about. In all cases where turbines aren’t maintained and working, there are issues with the owners of the turbines. It all works on paper which is why they get built. Many of the issues that have been brought up here are problems that happened in the rear view mirror. It’s part of the reason that primarily only very large companies are the ones ultimately building and owning wind farms.

Smaller companies cannot manage the project and maintenance.

As far as converting BTU's to electricity goes, the most efficient power plant I've seen are the combined cycle plants.

Nuclear power plants put out massive amounts of power. But last I checked only about 1-2 % of the heat from the reactor is converted into electricity. Anybody have more exact info on that?

Mike

They are ugly, they are noisy and they kill a lot of birds. Depends on how much they are willing to pay. You will probably want to take the money and move somewhere else. I know a guy who has 6 of them on his property and they pay him about $60,000 per year for them. I personally hate them but they aren't paying me. I also have some questions about whether it's sustainable. If the government stops subsidizing them, will you have some giant pieces of scrap on your property? Lots of questions that need to be answered before you sign.

Buckne would know lol.

Liberal Bernie! I have yet to see birds on the ground

Ugly, noisy and the electricity doesn't stay local, or at least the OK turbines don't, the power goes to other states. We're fighting a proposed plan currently than would put close to 200 turbines all around me. Some are for it, some against it. OK tax subsidy ran out last July, that seems to be slowing things down for now. There's a dozen wind farms within an hour of me already, several have failed in the last year, they make quite the dent in the Earth when they hit the ground.

they don't spin fast enough to hurt birds much, they have brakes on them
RR

An acquaintance of mine put one up years ago. He is now showing a very minor profit. Only took 15 years to get there. Bought it trying to save the planet, and he still paid a utility bill.
Right or not, his electric bill is more of a credit, barely.
To my knowledge, up keep on it is minimal. And no birds lost, I know I would have heard about that.

It's cool when the wind gets to howling, and it starts helicopter chopping.

I get your point, and I don't really care to see them along horizons on the prairie. But I haven't seen any power plant that I would call visually appealing.

Pick your preferred eyesore I guess.

Mike