Can "Wind Energy" pay for itself?....

JMU ~James Madison University~ mounted on a tall tower along route 81 in Harrisonburg Virginia...

Near Fairfield Virginia in the backyard of a private residence....

Augusta County Virginia near Fishersville...

Several wind towers in the local area of Augusta County. I drive past several of these each day on the way to and back from work and good to see the effort being made to harness the wind in the Valley. Unfortunately it seems most of these wind machines do not produce enough electricity to pay for themselves over the years and without the grants and tax breaks provided by the FedGov many of these would not exist...

The Oil Drum has an interesting article on these smaller wind units and why they do not produce enough to cover their expense....

"Two real-world tests performed in the Netherlands and in the UK confirm our earlier analysis that small wind turbines are a fundamentally flawed technology. Their financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy, and in urban areas, some poorly placed wind turbines will not even deliver as much energy as needed to operate them (let alone energy needed to produce them). Given their long payback period relative to their life expectancy, most small wind turbines are net energy consumers rather than net energy producers."

While the rest of the world develops offshore wind farms we continue to delay this use of technology and resource because somebody might see a turbine way off in the distance from the beach or Ted Kennedy's backyard....

"The Thanet farm, will be able to produce 300MW of electricity from 100 turbines - enough to power over 20,000 homes. It will be the biggest offshore facility of its kind until the even larger London Array, which has an eventual goal of 340 turbines, is completed. Thanet will dwarf the nearby Kentish Flats facility off Whitstable, also run by Vattenfall and using similar Vestas turbines."

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