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Comment by grownseed | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for your reply. I used to live in Scotland where there are a lot of wind turbines and I remember controversy in the news about the fact that while the expected lifespan of a wind turbine should be around 20 years, the actual lifespan ended up being in the region of 12 years, and the long-term maintenance costs ended up being higher than expected. There was also controversy about the environmental damage done to forests and birds, as well as noise pollution, though I guess this isn't directly related to the subject at hand.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of clean energy, I'm genuinely trying to inform myself about the pros and cons of each solution.

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It's a bit odd to be attempting to inform yourself of pros and cons you don't know, but also make a very strong opening statement about wind power. I work in the energy industry and I can honestly say I've never heard someone refer to wind turbines as "effectively unsustainable." Maybe, as a joke? But certainly not in any serious way.

If you want to learn more about wind in general you can cherry pick sections from the recently released Wind Vision[1]. It should be able to answer most anything you'd wonder about.

[1] http://www.energy.gov/windvision

I honestly wasn't trying to make a strong statement, but given the reactions and the downvotes, it does seem like I didn't come across as intended, my apologies for that.

And thank you for the reference, I will make sure to read through it as soon as I get more time.

controversy in the news about the fact that while the expected lifespan of a wind turbine should be around 20 years, the actual lifespan ended up being in the region of 12 years

There certainly was controversy. An initial study did indicate the lifespan was likely to be 12 years[1], but that was immediately questioned because Scotland already had 16 yo windfarms with no maintenance issues.

That initial study led to additional research, which showed that:

the UK's earliest turbines, built in the 1990s, are still producing three-quarters of their original output after 19 years of operation, nearly twice the amount previously claimed, and will operate effectively up to 25 years. This is comparable to the performance of gas turbines used in power stations.

The study also found that more recent turbines are performing even better than the earliest models, suggesting they could have a longer lifespan.[2]

Also, there's no real controversy about "damage done to forests and birds, as well as noise pollution". There's no damage at all to forests, bird deaths are in the order of 0.1% and noise pollution is what it is: they can be noisy if they are built near you, but there is no mystical "subsonics" or something that some people claim.

[1] http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/wind-turbines-life...

[2] http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcolleg...

Well if you are talking about damage done to forests & noise pollution, then you are trying to capture the externalities of power production into its "true cost".

I'm all for that, but if you decide to do that you also have to use the same methodology for coal, oil, nuclear, etc. Sorry birds, but I feel like the cost of every bird killed by a wind turbine pales in comparison to what a few mountain top removal coal mines do to an area.

In terms of economic ROI for the corporations owning wind turbines, I think it works out even w/o tax credits. Obviously the tax credits help, but the credits are not generous enough to justify all of this investing on their own. I believe the companies have done the analysis and believe it is profitable.

FYI: bird deaths via wind turbines are trivial.

Collisions with wind turbines account for about one-tenth of one percent of all "unnatural" bird deaths in the United States each year.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science...

I was thinking about starting the anti-windows party to campaign for banning glass in architecture, just to see how dedicated people are to the premise of reducing bird deaths caused by human structures.

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