Wind power, not in my backyard

give me a break. this guy is trying to steer people away from wind... probably an agent of the coal industry, or some tool that has internalized the fossil fuel message. obvious nonsense.

I was wondering how much land is needed for wind power generaters to equal the power output of a normal sized nuclear power plant? My concern is farm land in the midwest being convert to meet government demands to be more "Green".

Watched the video of the exploding wind turbine. How did they know just when to watch it explode?

This looks like a good solution to balance the loads en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery Lets not make excuses for our inertia for change.

Thanks for the great comments-- Phil, I don''t think worrying about the control issues are nonsense, the link I provided starts out with: "A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers" So that is a fact, not nonsense. Indeed, when plants started going offline in New York in 1965 it triggered the largest blackout in US history. Indeed, no matter if you call a wind turbine, a generator or a negative load, if the power output is suddenly variable it creates a new control problem. If indeed the generators are 3 megawatt (which is really cool in my opinion) then a sudden cessation in that generation is more problematic then when loads come on line-- since they do somewhat "monotonically" so to speak. I am quite impressed by the specs mentioned-- I have seen the 14 RPM mentioned before-- does that mean the turbines are not ac? They make DC and convert to AC like a solar installation? And Meridith-- do you have a grid-tied generator or do you get to select where the power is wheeled from? Thanks for all the great info--

I think windpower is great. Love it. Two comments on your article: A: indeed, govenment subsidies distort the truth. I feel the governement should stop subsidizing any of the energy solutions; including oil, alcohol, solar, nuclear, hybrid cars, etc. Let the free market sort out what works and what is real. B: Your argument about new control problems because the wind can stop is nonsense. Conventional power plants also go offline suddenly.

I live in San Antonio, Texas. In April and October power costs about 6 cents per KWH. In the middle of the summer various extras cut in, and power runs up to about 11 cents per KWH. City Public Service (The SA utility) charges a 3 cent per KWH premium for wind power. One of the charges that gets added to the regular bill is a fuel adjustment charge. That is now running 4 cents per KWH. I've switched to wind power to save money. This is a pure bottom line decision. There's no doubt in my mind that wind power is now competitive.

That's a tough one -- balancing the rights and needs of the neighbors. You hear about the poor folks who had to cut down their trees because they shaded the neighbor's solar array? The array was built after the trees were planted. But this was not a straightforward case -- hard to balance everyone's rights. I know I would not be thrilled to have a bank of windmills next door.