Wind Bust

I feel conflicted.

America failing to properly regulate stuff, leading to safety issues. Yep, seems utterly plausible.

But, wind farms, which are just blatantly lied about all the time. They disturb the worms, they cause ear cancer.

So it could go either way...

> Maintenance issues at Biglow Canyon matter broadly because PGE – Oregon’s largest electricity provider, serving some 900,000 homes and businesses in Oregon – plans to transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045. And its customers will be paying the bill.

> Yet the economics of wind power are heavily dependent on federal subsidies.

Ok, I'm out. Wind energy is cheap, so can't really trust the rest of the article.

Also, the repowering that is mentioned ominously repeatedly, is a fairly standard thing: https://windeurope.org/newsroom/news/repowered-wind-farms-sh...

It is a long article but I thought it was an interesting look at the wind power industry and has a few details about payments for land use and tax incentives for the companies and such (at the end they speculate that the structure of tax incentives is a major reason for the lack of maintinance in this case).

There is also a shorter article about the limited availability of safety data here:

https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2022/08/why-accident-safety-...

It's a bit surreal to be reading about the problem of oil spills from windmills, yet here we are.