Originally Posted by Criton

Cpal, your position is interesting. I'd love to explore it further but I get the impression you rather blather than discuss. But in case you can do something other than shoot wildly from the hip, I'll ask for your comments on wind power.

A U.S. power generator recently contracted to build a 200 MW wind farm for a cost of $250 million. The wind farm will occupy approximately 50 sq. miles. Most of the land on which it will be located will be largely useless for other productive purposes, except for grazing. The windfarm will consists of 130 separate wind turbines connected to each other and the power grid by miles of cable. Now if Canada were to replace the Nanticoke coal plant with wind power, it would need to install more than 4,000 MW of wind turbines if the turbines are able to operate at 90 percent capacity. In reality, wind turbines generally only operate at 50 to 60 percent of capacity due to variable weather conditions and the intense maintence required for this equipment. Consequently, to achieve the same electricity output as the Nanticoke plant, you would need at least 6,000 MW of wind turbine capacity. This represents the equivalent of 3,900 wind turbines, requiring approximatley 1,500 square miles of territory. Does this sound viable to you?