You might find this statement I’ve just written as part of a much larger piece of interest, for it distills for me the essence of our problems with the wind industry. The text forms the basis for other issues—tax sheltering schemes, coal plant efficiency, property devaluation, noise and light nuisances, destruction of heritage views, etc. Perhaps others will find it useful:

Wind energy doesn’t work well here because, despite the industrial size of its plant, it is so inefficient. The wind doesn’t blow with sufficient regularity and intensity to capture enough energy to make much of a difference relative to the size and rate of our demand for electricity. Imagine a thousand hamsters working out on their circular treadmills. They will also produce electricity—but what’s the point! The industry tries to compensate for these problems by making its turbines larger and placing them on high ridges with good wind, but their operation still requires back-up from fossil-fueled plants. Even if we placed huge wind turbines at all the good wind sites possible, saturating our region with 35,000 windscrapers, this would still not reduce the mining or burning of coal, given our rate of demand for electricity. Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined have less than one-half of one percent of the nation’s continental wind potential. Consequently, we will not see a reduction in air pollution unless coal plants get serious about using cleaner, more efficient equipment. In the larger scheme of things, wind power will always be a sideshow technology. And here in the East, its façade is energy production; the real function is tax sheltering. And everyone who has studied the issue knows it.