I work in the utilities industy. I was on a service call near Julesburg today and the local sub-station operator was bullshitting with us and the subject of wind energy came up. He basically said it was a long way from being viable and economically sound. Said it takes $0.85 to produce 1 Kilowatt (KW) of power with the current wind turbine technology.

With a coal plant it takes just $0.03 to produce 1 KW of power. Then he said that there needs to be another power source such as a coal plant to help regulate the fluctuation of voltage and current for the entire time the turbines are producing power or when the wind is not blowing, to allow a supple to the power grid. CO has a plan or idea that would have the entire eastern planes filled with turbines. The idea is that somewhere will always be blowing. This gives the entire grid a 1-3 ratio. Meaning out of 100KW of power for a potential output, only 30-33 KW would actually be made.

Also the turbines will never pay for themselves. Their life expectancy is 10 years (i know some of you will say that the expectancy can be surpassed... I know this and so did the operator) and it takes 12-13 years of service to pay for itself. So basically it is like the VCR......when it can be used affordably, then people will actually buy into it and use it.

Just thought I would share this new tid bit of info that the gov doesnt want us to know about.