Trump declares war on windmills

[DarkHunter]

21 minutes ago, simplybill said:

I’ve never seen dead birds around the turbines near me. I think the dead bird story gained traction when California inadvertently put up a wind farm years ago that was right in the migration route for certain migratory birds. 

Wind turbines generally kill bats and not birds, how the bats die is known (they get the bends by flying into the low pressure area behind the blades as they spin) what isn't known is why bats fly behind the blades.  Three big theories are either insects get trapped in the low pressure system behind the blades, that the frequency of the turbines mess up the bats echo location, or the bats just find is fun to fly around the blades for whatever reason.

As for the story it has a few parts.  First the amount of dead birds was over blown but a decent amount of birds were killed by very early wind turbines.  Secondly there was an issue of an early wind farm being built on a migratory route of a bird species.  The last part is that very early wind turbines were high rotational speed and low torque while current wind turbines are low rotational speed and high torque, low speed and high torque is just generally better all around for multiple reasons.

Edited January 16 by DarkHunter

[Golden Duck]

1 hour ago, simplybill said:

I live in the countryside in Iowa. We’re the state with the 2nd highest number of wind turbines. Personally, I just consider the wind as being another crop to be harvested. Last I heard, the farmers/landowners are being paid $800 a month rent for each turbine. Some of the larger farms have as many as 10 turbines, so it’s a good investment for them.

The turbines near my acreage are really kinda photogenic. This photo is looking West across my hayfield and the neighbor’s cornfield.

That's a pretty cool pic.

Here's one from across Lake George just north of Canberra.

This lookout has been around forever.  I think the windfarm hardly makes a visual impact at all.

 

[Edumakated]

10 hours ago, psyche101 said:

 

What a stupid political position.

There's science on the subject. Science isn't left or right. 

America and the left right goose step. You're all gooses with two wings. 

The point is progressives are all for certain things as long as it doesn't affect them personally.  Especially when it comes to climate change.  A key characteristic of the leftist elite is that the polices they push exempt them.

I don't really have an issue with wind farms though.  I drive through Indiana several times a year and there is a spot between Chicago and Indianapolis that is mostly flat farmland and there must be several hundred, if not a thousand of them.

[Gromdor]

22 minutes ago, Edumakated said:

The point is progressives are all for certain things as long as it doesn't affect them personally.  Especially when it comes to climate change.  A key characteristic of the leftist elite is that the polices they push exempt them.

I don't really have an issue with wind farms though.  I drive through Indiana several times a year and there is a spot between Chicago and Indianapolis that is mostly flat farmland and there must be several hundred, if not a thousand of them.

Why are the four leading states building them all red states?  When it comes to windpower it seems Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouth.  They say one thing but actively do another.  (Heck, stop and listen what what Iowa Republicans say about ethanol fuel)

[Edumakated]

20 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

Why are the four leading states building them all red states?  When it comes to windpower it seems Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouth.  They say one thing but actively do another.  (Heck, stop and listen what what Iowa Republicans say about ethanol fuel)

Probably due to geographic characteristics.  I suspect windfarms work best where land is flat, rural, and not a lot of trees hence why there are so many in the farmland I drive thru in Indiana.

Republicans don't necessarily have an issue with windfarms or green energy in general.  I know I don't.  However, I also don't think we need to be getting rid of or banning fossil fuels either.  I am for ALL energy.  I'm cool with EVs, just don't tell me I can't have my v8 dinosaur.  I am cool with solar.  Let the markets decide which works best and for whom.  

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Edumakated said:

Probably due to geographic characteristics

It is largely due to geography but also some economics and politics.

This is a wind resource map of America

Higher average wind speeds will generally generally higher energy, there are some caveats like altitude, frequency, and consistency but that just makes it more complicated.  Essentially all the best wind farm sites are generally in red states.

Economically while wind turbines are far from the most efficient or best energy source a lot of farmers are fine with making a decent income from allowing wind turbines to be built on their farms as they generally don't take up that much space per wind turbine.

Politically in general it is just much harder to build things in blue states than red states due to the vast differences in zoning laws and regulations.  

When all three are factored it does end up as nearly all wind farms will be built in red states instead of blue states.

[AZDZ]

12 hours ago, Portre said:

How often are the piles of dead birds cleared from beneath the windmills?

Exactly why Solar Powered Microwave Transfer from orbit is a better alternative, at high enough wattage the birds are vaporized.

Spoiler

😁 I keeyd. I keeyd.

 

I live nowhere near wind farms but it is never completely quiet. I use a white noise machine to drown it out. Windmill noise might seem like another setting on the white noise machine in comparison.  

I do not know how the numbers concerning how much emissions wind farms prevent from being released into the atmosphere shake. It is possible just as much emissions are released with them running as without them running thus making them redundant as emission reducing tools.

Therefore, except in places where it is to expensive or impossible to get traditionally produced electricity delivered, the argument of them being necessary would technically not be correct.

[Tatetopa]

13 hours ago, DarkHunter said:

The reality is the capacity factor for wind turbines is between 20% and 30% while for coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and even biomass it is between 80% and 90%.

Good point. If I had to buy wind and haul it to my location like natural gas or coal, it would make no sense at all.

But isn't it rather nice to have a 20% cut of something free and available most of the time?

[DarkHunter]

41 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

Good point. If I had to buy wind and haul it to my location like natural gas or coal, it would make no sense at all.

But isn't it rather nice to have a 20% cut of something free and available most of the time?

Wind isn't available most of the time.  The reason why wind has a capacity factor of 20% to 30% is because assuming they are at an ideal location they generally produce electricity approximately 50% of the time when they do produce electricity it's frequently only a fraction of their rated capabilities cause for a wind turbine to produce electricity at near 100% capacity the wind has to be blowing between certain wind speeds.  If the wind speeds is below that range, which it generally is most of the time, the wind turbines produces less energy and if the wind speeds drops too low it produces none.  If the wind speeds is above the range it also produces less electricity as the blades turn to reduce the rotational speed to prevent damage to the wind turbines and if the wind speed gets too high the wind turbines also produce zero energy as the risk of damage is too high.

Coal, natural gas, and oil you can easily control when they run and at what rate while for wind you can't control either.  Have wind for free but you run a very good chance of having no electricity when you need it.

Edited January 16 by DarkHunter

[DarkHunter]

For anyone interested in some of the issues with wind this graph from an actual wind farm explains stuff rather well

Wind speed is a Weibull distribution and at that location it goes from no wind speed to a wind speed of about 25 m/s with wind speeds over that being so rare they are statistically insignificant.  Peak energy generation occurs when wind speed is about 11 m/s but with decent energy production between wind speeds of about 10 m/s to 14 m/s.  Problem is those wind speeds are relatively rare with most wind speeds being between 0 and 7 m/s.  At the most likely wind speeds which occur most often the wind turbine is only producing about 0% to at best about 50% of its capacity. 

More energy can be extracted at higher wind speeds than lower wind speeds and since the idea is to maximize energy production the wind turbines will be designed to maximize energy production.  Through various calculations which I'm not going to bother getting into, not complicated but tedious, it was determined at that location that to maximize energy production the wind turbine should be designed to maximize energy production for wind speeds between 10 m/s to 14 m/s even though those occur less frequently and most of the time it will produce no electricity to at best 50% of its capacity.  

As another aside it is currently impossible to build a wind turbine that maximizing energy collection at all wind speeds as different wind speeds require different shaped propellers to maximize energy production.  Some work is being done with propellers that can change shape to increase the energy they can produce but those propellers are very expensive and not really being used.  Even then it is physically impossible to extract more then about 59% of the energy from wind due to the Betz limit which comes from fluid mechanics, specifically from Bernoulli's equation.

As another aside wind turbines have also been proven to alter the weather/climate by messing with the wind as wind turbines change wind from laminar flow to turbulent.  The effect is noticeable changes in precipitation patterns and noticeable changes in temperature.  These changes are small but adding more wind farms will cause increasingly more changes in precipitation and temperature.

Edited January 16 by DarkHunter

[Tatetopa]

17 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

Wind isn't available most of the time.  The reason why wind has a capacity factor of 20% to 30% is because assuming they are at an ideal location they generally produce electricity approximately 50% of the time when they do produce electricity it's frequently only a fraction of their rated capabilities cause for a wind turbine to produce electricity at near 100% capacity the wind has to be blowing between certain wind speeds.  If the wind speeds is below that range, which it generally is most of the time, the wind turbines produces less energy and if the wind speeds drops too low it produces none.  If the wind speeds is above the range it also produces less electricity as the blades turn to reduce the rotational speed to prevent damage to the wind turbines and if the wind speed gets too high the wind turbines also produce zero energy as the risk of damage is too high.

Coal, natural gas, and oil you can easily control when they run and at what rate while for wind you can't control either.  Have wind for free but you run a very good chance of having no electricity when you need it.

Totally agree with all of your description of wind turbines.  What I don't agree with is your assumptions about utilization and policy decisions.  You seem to declare it is one or the other..

If I were running a power company I would be calculating cost and benefit.  If I could install wind turbines that were cost efficient, I would use them when I could.  I would balance out the power requirements with my gas or coal turbines.  As a company, if I could save fuel costs by replacing some of my capacity with wind when it blows, it would add to my profit.  It would seem foolish not to take advantage of it.

[DarkHunter]

2 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

Totally agree with all of your description of wind turbines.  What I don't agree with is your assumptions about utilization and policy decisions.  You seem to declare it is one or the other..

If I were running a power company I would be calculating cost and benefit.  If I could install wind turbines that were cost efficient, I would use them when I could.  I would balance out the power requirements with my gas or coal turbines.  As a company, if I could save fuel costs by replacing some of my capacity with wind when it blows, it would add to my profit.  It would seem foolish not to take advantage of it.

That isn't how energy generation or energy sells work.

To match a 500 MW conventional power plant with 2 to 3 turbines with wind you will need approximately 1500 to 2000 MW capacity spread across hundreds of turbines and it is simply cheaper and easier to keep 2 or 3 turbines running than hundreds.

As for your idea on saving costs that just simply isn't going to work.  It takes days to weeks to get conventional power plants to generate electricity and roughly the same amount of time to safely turn them off, they can't just quickly be turned on and off on a whim.  Wind turbines produce energy extremely erratically and highly unpredictably.  If an energy producer does not deliver on their promised energy there are severe penalties which include having an unfavored status in future energy bids.

Your idea would result in conventional power stations in constant flux wasting fuel from constant start up and stopping, or just burning fuel unnecessarily by keeping everything running at a constant capacitybut not selling the energy produced, with a very high risk of not being able to deliver on promised energy if the wind just decides to stop blowing with all the severe financial penalties failure to deliver bring.

There is a reason why wind energy falls under peak load and not base load even though the green energy pushers keep trying to make wind base load.  Wind is just not reliable enough to meet base load requirements unless it is insanely over capacity which just isn't cost or space efficient.

[Gromdor]

5 hours ago, Edumakated said:

Probably due to geographic characteristics.  I suspect windfarms work best where land is flat, rural, and not a lot of trees hence why there are so many in the farmland I drive thru in Indiana.

Republicans don't necessarily have an issue with windfarms or green energy in general.  I know I don't.  However, I also don't think we need to be getting rid of or banning fossil fuels either.  I am for ALL energy.  I'm cool with EVs, just don't tell me I can't have my v8 dinosaur.  I am cool with solar.  Let the markets decide which works best and for whom.  

We subsidize oil to the tune of billions each year stil....  Where is this free market you speak of?

[Gromdor]

21 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

That isn't how energy generation or energy sells work.

To match a 500 MW conventional power plant with 2 to 3 turbines with wind you will need approximately 1500 to 2000 MW capacity spread across hundreds of turbines and it is simply cheaper and easier to keep 2 or 3 turbines running than hundreds.

As for your idea on saving costs that just simply isn't going to work.  It takes days to weeks to get conventional power plants to generate electricity and roughly the same amount of time to safely turn them off, they can't just quickly be turned on and off on a whim.  Wind turbines produce energy extremely erratically and highly unpredictably.  If an energy producer does not deliver on their promised energy there are severe penalties which include having an unfavored status in future energy bids.

Your idea would result in conventional power stations in constant flux wasting fuel from constant start up and stopping, or just burning fuel unnecessarily by keeping everything running at a constant capacitybut not selling the energy produced, with a very high risk of not being able to deliver on promised energy if the wind just decides to stop blowing with all the severe financial penalties failure to deliver bring.

There is a reason why wind energy falls under peak load and not base load even though the green energy pushers keep trying to make wind base load.  Wind is just not reliable enough to meet base load requirements unless it is insanely over capacity which just isn't cost or space efficient.

I work at power plants.  There are gas generation plants that start and stop daily depending on the power needs and wind cycles.  That is literally how we do it in Iowa.  They function as "peaker units".  The few remaining coal plants we have run all the time for the reasons you state which is another reason why we are phasing them out.  Getting coal on trains and barges was costly as was storing them.

So wind and the few remaining coal plants are base load plants and the multiple gas plants we have are Peaker Units: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

We even export excess electricity to Illinois and other states (since 2008): https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=IA

This after the fact that we are in the top ten per capita for using energy.

73% of our power comes from wind now.  It used to be near 100% coal.

Gas is expensive, coal is expensive, and wind is free requiring no costly transport or storage of fossil fuels.

[DarkHunter]

19 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

I work at power plants.  There are gas generation plants that start and stop daily depending on the power needs and wind cycles.  That is literally how we do it in Iowa.  They function as "peaker units".  The few remaining coal plants we have run all the time for the reasons you state which is another reason why we are phasing them out.  Getting coal on trains and barges was costly as was storing them.

So wind and the few remaining coal plants are base load plants and the multiple gas plants we have are Peaker Units: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

We even export excess electricity to Illinois and other states (since 2008): https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=IA

This after the fact that we are in the top ten per capita for using energy.

73% of our power comes from wind now.  It used to be near 100% coal.

Gas is expensive, coal is expensive, and wind is free requiring no costly transport or storage of fossil fuels.

Natural gas can be base load or peak load but it does not take away from my point and honestly neither does the rest of your post which is honestly largely garbage and very misleading to the point of being purposefully deceptive.

Iowa is a good example of what I mean by wind not being efficient.  Going to use 2023 numbers since those are easy to find and they will do good enough.  In 2023 Iowa produced 41,869 GWh of electricity from wind for the year with a capacity of approximately 13,000 MW or about 13 GW capacity to make things easier using same units means the capacity factor was approximately 36.7% so slightly better than average spread out over 6,000 wind turbines.  In comparison if 500 MW natural gas turbines used at a regular capacity were used it would require just 12 to meet the same energy production.  Wind might be free but the cost of maintaining 6,000 turbines every 6 months isn't free.

This in particular is where you are extremely misleading to being purposefully deceptive 

43 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

This after the fact that we are in the top ten per capita for using energy.

The problem is your are trying to equate energy and electricity which are not the same thing.  Iowa is in the top ten per capita for using energy but that is cause Iowa uses a very large amount of natural gas for heating houses and for drying corn.  Energy doesn't just count electricity but includes heating and fuel used in transportation and a few other things.  You either don't understand the difference between electricity and energy or you do and are being deceptive cause you think it helps your argument and you think it can result in a got ya moment.

[Tatetopa]

1 hour ago, DarkHunter said:

That isn't how energy generation or energy sells work.

To match a 500 MW conventional power plant with 2 to 3 turbines with wind you will need approximately 1500 to 2000 MW capacity spread across hundreds of turbines and it is simply cheaper and easier to keep 2 or 3 turbines running than hundreds.

As for your idea on saving costs that just simply isn't going to work.  It takes days to weeks to get conventional power plants to generate electricity and roughly the same amount of time to safely turn them off, they can't just quickly be turned on and off on a whim.  Wind turbines produce energy extremely erratically and highly unpredictably.  If an energy producer does not deliver on their promised energy there are severe penalties which include having an unfavored status in future energy bids.

Your idea would result in conventional power stations in constant flux wasting fuel from constant start up and stopping, or just burning fuel unnecessarily by keeping everything running at a constant capacitybut not selling the energy produced, with a very high risk of not being able to deliver on promised energy if the wind just decides to stop blowing with all the severe financial penalties failure to deliver bring.

There is a reason why wind energy falls under peak load and not base load even though the green energy pushers keep trying to make wind base load.  Wind is just not reliable enough to meet base load requirements unless it is insanely over capacity which just isn't cost or space efficient.

Respectfully, you seem to be advocating for a cause rather than from a financial perspective.  When it comes down to it, it is not about  the difference between electricity and power,  or between wind and natural gas.  It is not even about efficiency.

It is about money.  No wind or solar array has been put in by corporations that want to lose money  just to be socially correct.  Shareholders don't like that. They would be taken over or put out of business pretty quickly.

There is a cost benefit to land based gas turbines and wind turbines that power operators use to minimize cost or maximize return to shareholders.  They are familiar with your graphs and probably even generate their own. They even know exactly what to expect in costs from maintaining those 6000 wind turbines They incorporate those costs  and still come out with analysis showing a profit from  wind turbines. 

Why not include financial payback in you analysis? 

 

 

[psyche101]

8 hours ago, Edumakated said:

The point is progressives are all for certain things as long as it doesn't affect them personally.  Especially when it comes to climate change.  A key characteristic of the leftist elite is that the polices they push exempt them.

I just don't think there's good reason to be constantly poking the bear. What does it accomplish other than animosity?

8 hours ago, Edumakated said:

I don't really have an issue with wind farms though.  I drive through Indiana several times a year and there is a spot between Chicago and Indianapolis that is mostly flat farmland and there must be several hundred, if not a thousand of them.

It's just something we have to address. Fossil fuels are a limited supply. It's just the logical way forward. Hydro is also good, solar farms, it's also providing lots of jobs. 

[Gromdor]

1 hour ago, DarkHunter said:

Natural gas can be base load or peak load but it does not take away from my point and honestly neither does the rest of your post which is honestly largely garbage and very misleading to the point of being purposefully deceptive.

Iowa is a good example of what I mean by wind not being efficient.  Going to use 2023 numbers since those are easy to find and they will do good enough.  In 2023 Iowa produced 41,869 GWh of electricity from wind for the year with a capacity of approximately 13,000 MW or about 13 GW capacity to make things easier using same units means the capacity factor was approximately 36.7% so slightly better than average spread out over 6,000 wind turbines.  In comparison if 500 MW natural gas turbines used at a regular capacity were used it would require just 12 to meet the same energy production.  Wind might be free but the cost of maintaining 6,000 turbines every 6 months isn't free.

This in particular is where you are extremely misleading to being purposefully deceptive 

The problem is your are trying to equate energy and electricity which are not the same thing.  Iowa is in the top ten per capita for using energy but that is cause Iowa uses a very large amount of natural gas for heating houses and for drying corn.  Energy doesn't just count electricity but includes heating and fuel used in transportation and a few other things.  You either don't understand the difference between electricity and energy or you do and are being deceptive cause you think it helps your argument and you think it can result in a got ya moment.

Wind is efficient.  The cost of maintaining 6,000 wind turbines is minimal when even compared to a single gas plant or coal plant.  Fuel input costs alone makes wind better hands down.  Wind turbines require no water which gas and coal plants require.  Heck, I just asked the Operations Manager here at Emery Station and he said that each start-up and shut down costs $50,000 just in wear and tear for each of the units (it is combined cycle and has two units).

You think my conservative state is expanding on wind power just to be hypocrits?  No, it's the money.  Same with the other top four red states like Texas and Oklahoma.  

And yes, I used the word energy because coal and gas are included in that.  Can't dry our corn if we have to use all the gas to generate electricity.

Edit to add: Iowa has only 6,000 windmills but we have 33 or so power plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Iowa

Palo is closed, but they are talking about re-opening it to power data centers.  The ADM power plants are part of the "corn drying" as those facilites are almost as large a towns themselves with their own power plants.  

 

Edited January 16 by Gromdor

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Tatetopa said:

Why not include financial payback in you analysis? 

Wind turbines, and solar too, are only finically viable due to the extreme subsidies they both receive.  All energy gets subsidized to various degrees by the American government.  Over the past few years renewable energy has got approximately 46% of the energy subsidies, most of it going to wind and solar, despite the fact in 2023 renewable energy only made up approximately 21% of all electricity generation in particular wind and solar combined only made up approximately 14% of total electricity generation.

Recently, each year the federal government spends approximately $16 billion to prop up and promote wind and solar energy.  If those subsidies are reduced, let alone removed, then wind and solar are no where close to viable economically.

There is an argument that fossil fuels and nuclear are subsidized and it's not fair for wind and solar to not be subsidized but the reality is that if the $16 billion went to fossil fuels and/or nuclear power America would have significantly more energy at a cheaper price than now.

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Gromdor said:

Wind is efficient.  The cost of maintaining 6,000 wind turbines is minimal when even compared to a single gas plant or coal plant.  Fuel input costs alone makes wind better hands down.  Wind turbines require no water which gas and coal plants require.  Heck, I just asked the Operations Manager here at Emery Station and he said that each start-up and shut down costs $50,000 just in wear and tear for each of the units (it is combined cycle and has two units).

You honestly have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about and having this kind of discussion with you is pointless.  If wind was half as efficient as you claim then wind generation wouldn't need massive subsidies and coal power plants never would of been built, humanity has been using wind power for far longer than coal power plants and it is easier to set up a wind turbine than a boiler.  Discussing this matter with you further will just be a waste of time as you clearly don't know what you are talking about and just push a political agenda without actually understanding any of the subject.

1 hour ago, Gromdor said:

And yes, I used the word energy because coal and gas are included in that.  Can't dry our corn if we have to use all the gas to generate electricity.

It was deceptive and you know it, bragging about how Iowa gets approximately 76% of its electricity by wind power than immediately claiming that Iowa is one of the highest energy consumption states oer capita.  You definitely tried to conflate the two to make wind energy look good but the reality is Iowa ranks high cause of relatively low population and very high natural gas consumption for energy use per capita which has little to nothing to do with wind generation.

Even then in 2023 America produced approximately 4,202 TWh of electricity while Iowa produced approximately 62 TWh of electricity, or approximately or about 1.48% of the nations electricity.  Do you honestly believe wind can realistically be scaled up to meet the needs of the nation or even to match Iowa.

Edited January 17 by DarkHunter

[Gromdor]

1 hour ago, DarkHunter said:

You honestly have absolutely zero idea what you are talking about and having this kind of discussion with you is pointless.  If wind was half as efficient as you claim then wind generation wouldn't need massive subsidies and coal power plants never would of been built, humanity has been using wind power for far longer than coal power plants and it is easier to set up a wind turbine than a boiler.  Discussing this matter with you further will just be a waste of time as you clearly don't know what you are talking about and just push a political agenda without actually understanding any of the subject.

It was deceptive and you know it, bragging about how Iowa gets approximately 76% of its electricity by wind power than immediately claiming that Iowa is one of the highest energy consumption states oer capita.  You definitely tried to conflate the two to make wind energy look good but the reality is Iowa ranks high cause of relatively low population and very high natural gas consumption for energy use per capita which has little to nothing to do with wind generation.

Even then in 2023 America produced approximately 4,202 TWh of electricity while Iowa produced approximately 62 TWh of electricity, or approximately or about 1.48% of the nations electricity.  Do you honestly believe wind can realistically be scaled up to meet the needs of the nation or even to match Iowa.

I'll just leave this here:

 Lazard, an investment bank that has been calculating LCOE values for 12 years running, estimated in November 2018 that unsubsidized wind costs between $29-$56 per MWh, compared with $41-$74 for natural gas and $60-$143 for coal. With subsidies, wind became even more attractive, falling to just $14-$47 per MWh.

Some links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-levelized-cost-of-energy-generation-in-the-us-by-technology/

https://www.motive-power.com/ranked-americas-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-in-2024/

[Doc Socks Junior]

Presenting an actual source with information about federal incentives on energy from 1950-2016, without comment.

https://www.nei.org/resources/reports-briefs/analysis-of-us-energy-incentives-1950-2016

 

[psyche101]

29 minutes ago, Doc Socks Junior said:

Presenting an actual source with information about federal incentives on energy from 1950-2016, without comment.

https://www.nei.org/resources/reports-briefs/analysis-of-us-energy-incentives-1950-2016

 

Builds are cost effective too 

 

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2023/july/gencost

[psyche101]

[Tatetopa]

9 hours ago, DarkHunter said:

Have wind for free but you run a very good chance of having no electricity when you need it.

If only there was a way to store that wind generated electricity so you could use it whenever you needed.  Maybe we should put Elon Musk to work on that.