The Real Story Behind US Wind's HUGE Losses 

Is this a blip on the "wind energy roll out" radar in the grand scheme of things? Go to surfshark.com/undecided for 4 extra months of Surfshark. If you liked this, check out Why This Window Heat Pump Is Genius ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KNlDu_ZHIo8.html

You won't find much support for wind turbines, unless you're already a big fan

Good video Matt. I have worked in the wind industry for going on 12 years now in multiple roles. A major factor in the struggle of manufacturers is about 6 years ago, we all got into a race to the bottom. Who could sell the cheapest turbines, most kw per dollar? Who could sell at a loss and make it up on the back end with service contracts? Who could underbid and take service contracts from other OEMs? GE, Vestas, and Siemens all went to war and pretty much destroyed themselves. In the process, the new model onshore turbines lost all the quality and reliability that had been built into them over the preceding decades. There are utilities out there that want to, and have the ability to, build new onshore wind farms. They can't because no one has a turbine to sell them that isn't utter garbage.

A wind farm was planned around my area in Western NY, U.S. I'd have been in line for 4 turbines on my farm. The NIMBYs shut the whole thing down.

If people are upset about turbine blade fragments ending up in the ocean does this mean they're going to ban most boats?

Yesterday the UK switched off its last coal fired generator plant. Over the last year according to figures I have seen from National Grid 32% of electricity was generated from wind whilst apparently only 5% came from solar. On shore wind installations have effectively been banned at the planning stage in recent years although the new government has now lifted the ban

Having worked in the commercial-scale wind industry for 12-years, now in utility solar, I know the industry extremely well. The vast majority of wind developers transitioned over to being solar developers over the past decade as solar developments take ~2-years to originate to COD, while wind takes: ~7-years to COD, for the same size system, and requires MUCH less equipment and manpower, and, solar availability and yield is higher than wind, and now, solar is less expensive and provides a lower LCOE, in fact, the lowest of all energy sources. As a developer, you have to keep the checks rolling in to pay staff, investors and profit, and solar delivers more checks, much faster. Coupled with battery storage, solar will dominate new energy production until we hit 100%, in the next 2 decades. I predicted wind would taper off to max ~20-25% of total power capacity, for the reasons I mentioned above, and for lack of new low-cost sites, while solar will continue to grow exponentially. If ALL roof space in the U.S. were covered with solar panels, we'd produce ~50% of our power via solar. If you add all parking spaces, you add another 10%, and other dead spaces: 10%, and this doesn't even include large solar fields, which is almost unlimited. No question, solar + BESS will be the dominant energy producer in the near future, and beyond.

Resin prices during Covid went nuts, and never really came down as far as I can tell. Any product that uses resins went way up. Those turbine blades are about 50-70% resin.

Few things are more incredible than paddling with your kayak right under an offshore wind turbine. They are so huge…

I truly don't understand the pushback on turbines. Where I am in Iowa, we've had them since the mid to late 90's. I remember driving past the massive wind farm on the cropland in the northwest part of the state when I would visit my grandparents. We never heard a bad thing about them; they just stood over the fields and spun, doing their generating thing.

In Italy, Sardinia is a prime exemple for the community or local government opposition issue, 75% of their energy production is still thermoelectric production with Gas ~34% Coal ~33%, people are protesting and antagonizing solar farm and wind farm both onshore or offshore they are even vandalizing some construction sites, the local government dispanded most of the project and refuse to accept any further application. It's a pity, begin a big island in the middle of the sea offshore wind farm would be an amazing idea in order to reduce the impact and have cheap energy production.

Wind energy can definitely be profitable, but not THAT profitable. This is due to a wide array of factors. I work in the industry and it gets quite obvious once you’ve been there. You need a lot of technicians, and a LOT of different systems installed in the turbine to actually make it function properly. The whole thing is complex, and requires many other industries in order to work properly. If you, for example, don’t have large cranes available in an area you can’t repair them when any of the larger components break down (and they ALL break down eventually). A turbine standing still quickly becomes a huge loss as they cost a lot to operate.

Offshore wind in the USA may not require territory or sea coast in the USA. In the two most eastern provinces of Canada there are several large developments in the near 5GW range on land. Because the areas in question are scarcely populated and have low economic activity these developments well go ahead along with about another 3,700MW's of undeveloped hydropower above the some 8000MW's now developed. All of the proposed wind farms will be located on Crown (ie pubic) lands and at present it will go into the production of Hydrogen and Ammonia to be shipped to Germany but with the proper grid connection, wind generated electricity from eastern Canada could also supply the eastern seaboard of the USA. Another aspect that is coming of age is Hybrid Wind/Wave offshore platforms that generate electricity from wind and waves while sharing the same structural, grid connections and Operation, Engineering and Maintenance services. This could potentially be the biggest boom of all since a 15 MW offshore wind platform would have the capability of generating possibly upwards of 30 to 40 MWs in a single structural platform either fixed or floating. If wind energy is to survive then it must adopt to this Hybrid technology

Our local power company rents the turbines , then rents the land separately. So far they have at best broken even and usually run a loss , driveing our power prices way up

I don't know how you keep a straight face through so many puns. Great video, as always!

The US Wind Industry blows? To the punitentiary with you!

Inflation and the fact we may have entered a technical recession 8 months ago have stopped many good projects. Politicians are incapable of seeing the long-term benefits.

Intermittent sources like wind and solar need inexpensive storage to make sense.

It's always local conditions, you have to make an environmental assessment with these as well as with everything else. When there's a boom going on, it can be easy to get blinded by the speed, and only see the wreckage afterwards.

Big concern, at building, the turbines have been so heavily subsidized by the government without any long-term concern for the ecology of the fisheries on the East Coast. Building thousands of skyscraper sized, wind turbines.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. As a retired power system operator I can say I have experienced the problems large wind turbines can inflict onto the power grid. I was always a fan of small scale wind but the maintenance requirements usually kill them since a skilled climber is often required to work on them. I was really impressed with the Wind Spire vertical turbines but since they have start speeds that disqualifies them for most locations. I was pondering what they needed was a community wind farm solution where you could have it installed at a ideal location that you rent from the farmer and have your electricity delivered to your home by the local utility. Didn’t see that financial model ever coming into existence. Lately I recently discovered community Solar that has solved the problem and offers a similar solution for people that would like solar but are either restricted by codes, ascetics or simply being apartment dwellers. Community solar might make an interesting subject especially since you have the data for on site installation and could run a comparison. I’m guessing they are likely scooping up most of the savings. Wishing you and your family the best.

Even if solar becomes the dominant green tech, we need to keep investing in multiple energy sources.

Matt your ability to fit so many puns into this video blew me away

Why wind costs are going up, solar is going down. we should spend more on rooftop solar. Rooftop solar eliminates reliance on the grid.

Imagine if all the money spent on massive wind turbines had been spent on forth generation small modular nuclear reactors. The reactors will consume the nuclear waste of older reactors and be able to be online generating power more than 90% of the time.

Interest rates play a huge role, and it boils down to "because the Fed. said so."

i remember when i was living cape cod back in 2010 or so they wanted to do a offshore wind farm and people voted against it pretty aggressively saying it would ruin the view, i just learned from your video about the vineyard wind farm so i guess they actually started to do it.

I went to Germany 15 years ago and there seem to be a huge wind energy presence there, but I heard it's all tax money funded for the most part.

Existing offshore wind turbine farms are showing that it is the most expensive to produce electricity among all renewable energy sources. Until they can get the cost of electricity produced by these offshore farms down significantly, other renewable energy sources will be more economically attractive.

Because unless it’s produced for cheap in China, the US can’t have it.

I could see if you live in a windy area, and or go to camp grounds that are breezy wind energy is good. Nice to have another way like portable wind turbines to charge your Lifepo4 batteries at night and after sunset especially when you are far from the grid. 😊

in the usa there's a group of people trying to force us to continue using coal and oil. they aren't even doing it because they are investors.

Did he change intro music ? I was attached to it

So many puns this video was a riot 😂

Thank you for this analysis. In the first 60 seconds I had posited multiple questions based on your opening statement, which you then proceeded to address in the video. IMO you are one of the finest science and engineering influencers in RU-vid. Keep up the great work!

The current German government has changed legislation to make it much harder for nimbies to block or defer projects like power lines, gas facilities, and solar and wind parks. They have their chances of protesting, but they can't delay those projects for years and years anymore by simply finding another hair in the soup every half a year. One of the worst opponents was the populist government of the state of Bavaria. They absolutely opposed against the "Südlink" (south link) HVDC power line as they did against wind turbines. Südlink alone will transfer up to 4 GW of offshore power from the north sea, is now under construction, and will start to transfer in 2028. More lines are to be built. They heavily propagated solar in Bavaria, but it was overdone - many solar plants can't be connected to the grid due to capacity problems. They also backed the phase-out of nuclear power stations. Now, after the shutdown of russian gas pipelines, the suddenly see that they better had some local alternatives. So they now turned around 180 degrees and try to persuade local communities to accept wind parks and gave their OK for buildin power lines - on behalf of industry and businesses. Concerning wind parks, Germany has plans to extend its capacities onshore and offshore massively. Earlier, the damn bureaucracy had delayed the construction of offshore wind parks by many years, ruining the original calculations as the material and labour prices went up massively in the mean time. But they are starting over, and large capacities have been put out to tender successfully with even more bidders applying than there was capacity requested. In the US it may be simply the abundance of cheap gas. Out of 4,000 TWh electric energy produced in the US every year 1,800 TWh are gas-based. So wind turbines habe to compete with that (even nuclear has its problems competing; compare the failure of NuScale). To my knowledge, electric production with gas is about 4,7 cents/kWh, and wind is probably more expensive. In Germany, for comparison, gas is the most expensive option with well over 10 cents/kWh (up to 28), while wind onshore is at 6-7 cents and offshore at 7-9. I think the US should introduce a carbon tax soon and phase out their ways of wasting precious ressouces.

Mat, that was a good summary of wind industries difficulties. Can you something on tidal energy. It's way more predictable then either wind or solar and seems to be less venerable to public objections?

Two big problems with renewables: first of all you have to borrow all the money for the project up front, and can't start paying back until it is built. With a gas or coal plant, most of the cost is fuel and you can pay for that as you use it. Second problem with off-shore wind on the east coast, fairly close to where you need a lot of power is that storms happen. One more big problem: maintenance is going to require expensive technicians being forced to live in very expensive communities to go out and work in dangerous conditions. Good luck getting that done on the cheap.

I've been meaning to mention that I like the new Undecided theme much better than the old one. Well done!

TLDR: The US is BIG compared to Europe and wind distribution is a huge pain in the ass. Solar is easier to tie to the grid and easier to store the energy.

Really appreciate the nuanced info here!

Also need to mention the Jones Act, and how repealing it would drop costs as well.

Recycling the turbine blades is difficult but not impossible. Some companies are stepping forward.

this pattern of failure is classic among American industry. the problems include over specialization, gigantification, industrialization, burdensome regulation, etc. One of the many benefits of wind (and solar) is its widely available. Yet the industrial spirit is to focus on giant single use farms that arent exactly where the power is needed. The best way to take advantage of wind (and solar) is to apply it locally, especially where height is free, i.e. rooftops, bridges, etc. Wind (and solar) is extremely successful in smaller scale operations like family farms, sailboats, suburban campuses, weather stations, firetowers, etc (which didnt require any subsidies, grants, tax breaks, etc)

Cars put billions of tons of gas into our atmosphere and nobody cares, but ONE turbine blade breaks some fiberglass into our oceans and people get up in arms! Insanity.

solar is great, but wind helps on scale. For solar you need a lot of rootfops (solar belongs to rooftops, especially commercial ones or warehouses) but adoption is slow. As you said, one needs millions of panels. Wind, with a hundred of well places and well designed turbines can do the same. People are unfortunately extreme at times with their NIMBY. They should pay for the opportunity cost. Like: you do not want to see a turbine (that is beautiful btw), then pay the opportunity cost of it. When the wallet hurts, people will think twice. In any case we need more storage to shift at least a couple of hours the peak production (for wind in the night, solar in the day) to those peak hours usages.

I work in planning in the UK for the Leicestershire area. In the 7 years I’ve been doing this I’ve seen many planning applications for solar farms, but not one for wind. Even in a country with little sun, solar seems to be preferable. There is wind power here, but they were built years ago - no new ones. I believe most of the new UK wind projects are offshore.

I've long felt that decentralizing the overall power generation system was key to it's stability & profitability. Smaller installations like Aeromine or Turbulent for wind & water respectively had great potential to keep costs low. At the same time encouraging local power generation & having a far lesser effect on the local ecosystem. I would hope to see less of the mega dam & turbine projects in exchange for more rural & urban systems that take advantage of the unique geography of these less outage prone options. Then there is the end of life issues..

I think the biggest problem with wind power is that it doesn't scale . The barrier for entry is literally and figuratively enormous where was solar you can do big or small fairly easily. Wind conceptually makes a lot of sense but until there are widely available scalable technologies it will lag behind

6:01 I've been wondering what these very large black (with red+white rings on top) towers on these ships are for, after seeing one of these in the local harbor. Are these towers just used to create a large counter balance mass to oppose the forces from the crane and other parts on the ship or are they some kind of shelving system used to secure the large loads to? Figured I asked here, because channels like these tend to have at least one person that is an expert at any particular subject that's shown in the videos.

People want to live next to coal fire plants, instead of solar parks, because coal "looks better". Ridiculous

I saw a video where another type of wind turbine was very different from the traditional versions of wind turbines, it's connected to a tree and whenever the wind blows and the branches sway, it produces electricity.

It's the same story everywhere. Here in the Netherlands and Germany those windmills all rely on endless subsidies. And they are just unreliable.

The thing is there are household sized windmills that will produce power in wind as mild as 5mph, and given that cloudy weather puts a dent in power production. Home sized windmill generators would have been helpful in the aftermath of Helene, especially given that power won't be restored for weeks in some places. Yeah windmills would probably not worked out well during the hurricane

Lots of available options in the renewable sector. Focusing on just a couple is how the US did with petroleum based transportation. Look at the issues we have had there…. OPEC led embargoes, higher prices that stifle our economy, irresponsible (not all) fracking that jeopardizes our ground water… I for one am glad to see those problems go away! I continue to look forward to a future with multiple distributed energy sources supplying our green future. Not one that relies on a narrow approach but one that can ride out shortages in one sector or another as we work with the natural world in a mutually beneficial direction that leads us to sustainability.

The fact that 2023 was the lowest year for new wind capacity since 2014 really puts things in perspective. It’s striking how factors like inflation and material costs can halt progress so quickly. It’s reassuring to see new offshore wind developments in the pipeline.

Wind turbines are remarkably expensive to maintain. Thats the biggest issue.

The only way for the offshore farms to be profitable is to charge more for its power. Green power was supposed to be green and CHEAPER. No one wants to pay more for their electricity.

I've always said that Wind and Solar are GREAT for supplemental energy and diversifying the energy grid. But they are NOT reliable. Nuclear is the clear winner on all fronts and needs to be our primary go-to for clean, reliable, avundant, and safe energy.

We absolutely expected the rollout to renewable energy sources to be slow and bumpy. I think we've actually been VERY lucky to date. We knew it was going to be painful. In some ways, the pain is more proof of concept than the success. "Life is pain, highness. Anybody who tells you differently is selling something"

The cost to build a wind turbine went up 38%... but inflation was only 11% in the same period. Suuuuuure Jan.

In the UK though we get around 40% of all the wind that hits Europe around our coasts so wind power is going to play the major part for our energy transition especially now the new Labour government have lifted the ban on new land wind turbines. Saying that, we do have extensive solar, especially rooftop solar helped by % 0 tax on battery storage and some good tariffs when buying excess and exporting to help with grid balancing, you can even get paid to use excess electricity sometimes.

I live Albany NY and we have wind power construction facilities locally. I hope the offshore wind projects in the region get back on track because I like green power and green power industry jobs.

you can hurry up and build wind generaor on shore and off shore, but the grid is not up to standard to accept the additional generation. There is no budget to upgrade the grid.

How about all the maintenance and recycling issues as they appear to be replacing blades sooner than expected.

What about wave energy? The UK seems to be using that as well. Does the US have any viable wave energy things in the works?

These problems were not US exclusive but the decline in production seems to be US exclusive. What makes US different? Fossil fule lobbiests?

have a look at California where RWE builds the first commercial-scale floating Windpark, and also New York Bight. Both currently in development, but its something :)

I have a better question. Why does the US suck at nuclear??????? Why do we locate nuclear at places we know will be at horrible risk of failure just because nature will win every single time?

Matt, I live in Westport (yes, that one) and those two recent failures that landed debris on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Westport, and other local communities has only added fuel to the opposition to off-shore wind farms. One brief look at the local social media can show you what I mean. I'm sure you've seen the complaints from those opposed to off-shore wind farms as to the destruction of the ecology and marine wild life that it causes. I personally have not seen enough data one way or another to make up my mind on the subject. But, I am willing to keep an open mind.

How about covering the fact that the UK, who invented the coal fired power station kicking off the industrial revolution, has in the last week, turned OFF its last coal fired power plant, paving the way for other countries to follow suit

I live in the Midwest, and did a wind survey myself; back in 2012, or something like that. I came up with an offshore string from Racine, WI, to Burns Harbor, IN .. yeah that's the most consistent wind around here, combined with the most reasonable water depths. but the problems are political ... because most people, unfortunately, have been disqualified from being considered politically correct on the grounds that we are not black.

I think part of the issue is that a lot of the projections I've seen on future projects were using Moore's law in projecting costs that were not realistic. They thought material would get cheaper as production went up just skipping over when demand goes up on a limited resource price will naturally go up ... and there is pressure on every country to increase their demand. China's issues are another factor causing delays and increases in costs.

They are making the same mistake nuclear power did, the accountants think one big one is cheaper than two small ones. So they are building giant turbines that are beyond the limits of the materials. So the blades are failing, the towers buckle, the gearboxes shred and the brakes fail in strong winds making for spectacular fires. Factor in reliability and smaller turbines make more sense.

I wish that firms would use the more efficent blade design using a vertical settup (from Pembrokeshire)

Really... Suck instead of blow? Completely missed the opportunity. Disappointed.

I think contrasting wind "failures" with say, a Chernobyl or Fukushima, and you see what's the better choice.

The population at large assumes that wind generation projects will go off perfectly? After all, these projects have been promoted as clean, with little to no negative impacts ever mentioned. They're also typically remotely sited. So when bits of a failed turbine blade wash up on the shores of Nantucket, the backlash from the well-heeled is swift, certain and loud. "How dare you!" Let's get real! No construction project goes 100% to plan. Additionally, "stuff" happens. Wind farms are being held to an impossible standard of perfection. For me, years or decades of emission-free electricity generation from wind are well worth any temporary inconvenience from construction, minimal impacts to vistas from wind farms far offshore, the extremely rare instance of debris from blade failure, and the costs associated with recycling blades at end-of-life. What the population at large chooses to overlook are the immense costs to health and the environment from digging up dinosaurs, pumping the goo out of the earth, refining and transporting the finished product everywhere, only to burn it once at a maximum efficiency of 27% (gasoline) to 37% (diesel): • An estimated 5.13 million excess deaths worldwide annually are attributed to burning fossil fuels. • The US oil and gas industry receives $754 billion annually in implicit subsidies; costs like negative health impacts and environmental degradation that are borne by society at large rather than producers. • Fugitive methane emissions are a huge problem. To put it in perspective, studies have shown that the aggregate emission rate observed across large portions of the country’s 12 major production basins would amount to 7.5 million metric tons per year *(or about 860 metric tons of methane pollution every hour). That’s enough wasted gas to meet the annual energy needs of over half of U.S. homes.* • Disasters such as the Exxon Valdez (11 million gallons of oil), Deepwater Horizon (3.19 million barrels, or 134 million gallons of oil) and others. • An estimated 3.2 million abandoned oil wells in the US, 32,000 offshore, are ecological ticking time bombs. But, hey, if it's not me or mine dying, or my beach isn't being affected, I'm all good. As long as my energy bill remains low, I'm fine with all that rest of that stuff. When are people going to wake up?

I've been telling you Windmills can only put in about 10% some can put in 15% are there maximum rated output just like solar And like Enron when to get credit for 100%

wind power sucks, let's go nuclear

can u do story on solar in australia, government trying to charge us for electricity sent into grid

Wind varies greatly year to year. Since not practical to store energy for a year this is big disadvantage Nuclear cheaper overall than offshore wind

The Houston evacuations ordered in La Porte amid a roaring pipeline fire seems like it would make wind safety a lesser issue. How long before another Deepwater Horizon or Valdez?

Ironically, wind turbines have large gearboxes (to turn the slow-moving high-torque input into a faster, less-torque output for the generators). Each gearbox contains up to 800L (!!) of gear oil. Gearbox failures aren't that rare, neither are mishaps during routine maintenance work, leading to oil spills. They are less "green" than you might think, in the sense that when something goes wrong, particularly for coastal deployments, the results can have far-reaching environmental impacts...

I don't know if its true or not, but around here people say that they spend energy to make the turbines spin when there's no wind to keep people from blowing up the phones about the turbines not working. It makes people not like them.

Why don't we just use nuclear instead of using massive amounts of land and air space that solar and wind use? How is it green energy when it takes acres and acres and acres of land to get practically no energy out of them.

Altoona Pennsylvania is in the middle of the mountains. The Mountains were a great location for turbines, lining the top of the mountains. There is a problem, however. They found that the turbines were chopping up hundred to thousands of endangered bats, which come out at night, and fly over the mountains. The local eco groups sued, and now those turbines must be halted any time that the Sun isn't shining. When word got out that the primary period that the turbines were needed (to supplement the total lack of solar at night) resulted in a whole lot of jobs lost trying to install the turbines.

Seems like there are a ton of obstacles to overcome; cap ex, misinformation, oil industry sycophants, etc.... Seems to be a solid technology, but the "startup costs" (so to speak) are always going to be painful.

Two words: Fossil Fuels. The oil industry will not permit renewables to destroy the profitability of their industry.

I still like solutions that people can install at their homes, like solar. No transmission issues and no worries about power failures due to problems 50 miles away. I'd like to see more home based windmills like they had in the old West 200 years ago. Or maybe person nuclear generators like Back to the Future's Mr. Fusion.

You need to put Scottish people in charge. We got loads. Literally.

I have been working in offshore wind for the past 2.5 years and worked in onshore in the U.S. for many years before that. Between the projects I have worked on in Europe and South Fork wind, which I commissioned this past year. The main issue concerning offshore wind in the U.S. that was not mentioned in this video, is the Jones Act. On one hand it is a good law that helps keep and promote maritime and manufacturing jobs for Americans. But when it comes to a new industry like offshore wind, we simply don’t have the proper resources for making these projects profitable. We need U.S. built Installation vessels, currently there are 0. Soon there will be one. The barge system we used at South Fork, and continue to use at Revolution and Vineyard wind. Is a system that will work, but massively increases the amount of time it takes to build a wind farm. It’s understandable though, investors don’t want to put up many millions of dollars on a vessels they don’t know will be profitable or not. Being the first one to do it, is not cheap. That’s why Dominion and Seajacks worked together to develop the Charybdis WTIV.

So Big Wind is too expensive? Time for a big government subsidy? Or just admit that PV+battery is the future?

Are you including non-direct-to-grid? Several of the US's current projects are linked directly into green hydrogen production projects...

None of the problems mentioned are exclusive to the US and the rest of the world kept installing and making profits out of this turbines. the real reason this industry is having a hard time in that country must be a different one. I'd love a video that really goes into details on what's different for the Us, maybe the grid is more obsolete maybe the oil industry is extra powerful, maybe the nonsense on wind by certain politician scared off investors there...

Excellent informative video. Thanks!

In the space of 20 football fields, molten salt nuclear reacotors (MSNR's) can produce as much power as all the wind turbines in the world. So why is the wind turbine a logical choice? Modular MSNR's can be built in factories, closely monitored to ensure accurate tolerances to provide the best power plant on earth and by far the cheapest price!!!!! The MSNR manufacturer's need to be the on site power companies as well. Why you might ask? Because they will then manufacture the best product, knowing they will have an income stream the continues for decades upon decades. These companies need to be public and all employees need to be vested 100% in these companies for their retirements. In this way, they will make the best power plants on earth for us and for themselves. They and their families can never sell their shares. If they have no families, their shares will revert back to the company for resale to reduce the cost of energy. Even after they no longer work for the manufacturer/utility company, they may not sell their equity. It is their retirement plan. If they have everything vested in the success of the company, and it's a regulated industry, they will do their best to make the company the best it can be. And they should be rewarded appropriately for their work.

I don’t care if there aren’t economic advantages. Full speed ahead. We need to be 100% renewable. Costs be damned.

The wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. I don't see how this tech could replace fossil fuel. Nuclear is the only tech I see that could, but it first needs to be given permission. The French have come up with a way to recycle the spent fuel rods and make them useable again. They even came up with a "safe use" for the plutonium generated in the recycling process. The best place for nuclear is the Dakotas, but they don't have the political will to make it happen. They are centrally located without being in tornado alley. They are also geologically stable (AKA no earthquakes). Sense they are in the middle of the continent, it makes them a difficult military target to hit. The only dangers left are blizzards, wild fire, and weirdos. Apparently, I am not a big fan of big wind.

Great job with the puns, you had a gust of them...