Onshore Wind electricity is cheaper than natural gas, nuclear and coal power.

[hunter]

10. Most hydro sucks.

Conventional hydro has hugely adverse environmental impacts and often increases greenhouse gas emissions while reducing carbon sequestration.

I'm glad to see they are using pumped hydro in your example, independent of natural waterways.

I'd generally prefer solar over wind. As the price of solar panels decreases and desalinization technology improves this will become a more economical option. From my perspective solar collectors built over previously developed land are easy maintenance, fail gracefully, and don't eat so many bats or birds as wind turbines do.

Most isolated places with populations of 10,000 simply use a few large diesel generators. Nantucket, Massachusetts, with a similar population, was powered by big diesel engines before undersea power lines connected it to the mainland.

http://www.ackenergy.org/brief-history-of-energy-on-nantucket.html

There are many smaller remote towns all over the world where the thrumming of a big diesel generator is constant. The sound of a large diesel engine and the odor always reminds me of being on fishing boats with my dad when I was a kid. I always notice when our local hospital is testing it's backup generators.

Ideally most power would be generated locally using local energy sources. Communities would have to live with the consequences of their power supply choices. As it is now, a coal mine, a fracking field, uranium mining, nuclear waste disposal, giant hydroelectric projects, refineries can be hundreds or thousands of miles away from the people benefiting from the electricity, people who suffer few of the adverse consequences of the energy source other than global warming or the war taxes they pay to expropriate or defend the remote, environmentally destructive resource.