Reply #4: Well, yeah

[malakai2]

But that's how wind energy companies do their press releases - "X number of megawatt capacity, capable of powering Y number of homes!"

Then you sit down with them in private permitting or planning meetings and they're very up front about the capacity factor being somewhere between 0.20 and 0.35, among other realities that don't go into the press releases. If you go to a township or county meeting where people are deciding how best to control this development in their communities, guess which version usually "wins" the argument? I saw the results of one this week in my county, where several motions were voted down, among them setbacks from major roads, motions to set the dB limit at 35ish (from residents) and 48 (from industry rep), and interestingly, a motion to require companies to hold bonds for cleanup and removal of turbines they own. The result is that the setback from homes is a quarter mile, there is no setback from major roads, companies do not need to provide proof of financial ability to clean up a site in the event of disaster or bankruptcy, and the noise limit stayed at 45ish dB.

Absent from the discussions was any real discussion of large scale energy distribution and whatnot. The big drivers of keeping things the way they were and welcoming wind developers with open arms were money and some nebulous concept of clean domestic electricity generation.