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Originally Posted by t vago
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Early adopted technologies will have failures. The green driven mandates resulted in poorly developed designs that failed too quickly and saw little advantage for repair.
Other wind farms and wind turbine designs are proving much more productive and long lived.
Two of the wind farms mentioned in that Craigslist Rant are still producing. I drive by them regularly and I see new turbines replacing the old. I also drive by new wind farms along the border of Mexico and the USA. Some of them are owned by the local Native tribes. They are pleased by their investments in these modern turbines. They are profitable and relatively trouble free. With composite variable pitch blades, they have the ability to produce electric power in a much larger range of wind speeds.
Yes, there are thousands of turbines that were set up 15, 25 and 35 years ago. And now they are broken. MILLIONS of automobiles break down after less than a decade of use, never returning the investment of energy poured into them. Fossil fueled power plants NEVER return the investment in energy needed to build them because they USE energy in their operation. Niky is spot on in his observations - it is as much going to be a culture change as much as a technology change. We value the automobile enough to accept its waste and pollution. We must do the same for technologies that will help us transition to the future. And in that future, humanity must make do with less.
Wind turbines are improving. They now have higher output and reduced breakdowns. They are able to provide a payback to investors without heavy government subsidies. They are able to payback the energy invested in their production.
It is easy to pick at the scabs of old wounds. It is much more difficult to be a constructive healer. I could sit here and SLAM the automobile for its failures and there would be little good to come of it. I could SLAM fossil fuel for its evils and I would just be spinning in the mud.
What solutions do you think would work for a world that WILL run out of fossil fuels sometime in the near future of humanity?