3 thoughts on “Turbine jobs are gone with the wind

  1. Bill, woulda been interesting if you’d pursued your statement that wind energy is “lucrative.” You never substantiate that assertion. I suspect it might be true only because of the spate of federal stimulus funds. Because I don’t see private industry clambering for wind power. Even T-bone Pickens abandoned his wind mega-farm because grid-builders refused to build lines out to the gusty-dusty prairies where wind grows. So, folks don’t want the towering behemoths close to their homes. And gridmeisters won’t help bring the wind to market from the middle of nowhere. How on earth could it be “lucrative” if not for govt subsidies?

    IT was a good piece in its present form, though, I enjoyed reading it. Thanks.

  2. timbo,

    By logical extension I’m assuming that you think the oil companies’ huge subsidies (despite record profits and record polluting of the environment) should be done away with too. I suspect that the near term eventual shutdown of the now old nuclear plants and disposal of the waste in granite formations in northern Wisconsin with the newly liberalized mining regulations on the books or further disregard of Federal environmental regulations is something WI citizens should look more favorably upon.

    Corn ethanol didn’t need any subsidies either, as it was so competitive with other energy options. That agricultural shift, more round-up and gm corn and polluted ground water and skyrocketing food prices world-wide and had no detrimental effects to society compared to the towering behemoth wind-turbines. The mass extraction of dirty carbon in the tar sand fiasco, pipelines through precious fresh water aquifers, sand mine all of west central WI to frack that rock so natural gas can be delivered right through your kitchen sink faucet. Anything but a freaking wind turbine. /s

    Maybe government’s job right now is to subsidize the grid-builders instead of the other more dangerous (to humans) forms of energy production. Just a thought.

  3. Bill, the wind turbines are not solving the problem they are being built for. Because we do not know when the wind will blow, the coal fired power plants can not be shut down. So we don’t have the coal savings and we still have the high cost of the wind turbines. I would be happy to explain in more detail. I have 30 years of utility experience.