A note to Robert Handfield regarding his comments concerning wind energy. I agree that there are hazards to be had with the use of wind turbines, but any production of electrical energy by any other means is far more hazardous, to wildlife, to the ecology of an area, or pollution to the atmosphere.
However, your suggestion that a single turbine will take between 400 to 500 acres of room is way out of line. With 640 acres to a section (one square mile) you are stating that one turbine will use up to three-quarters of a square mile. You obviously haven’t visited areas of the world where wind turbines are prevalent — Denmark, Germany, California, Texas, etc. — where they have as many as five or more turbines per square mile.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Wind turbine spacing on most horizontal wind-turbine farms, a spacing of about six to 10 times the rotor diameter is often upheld. However, for large wind farms distances of about 15 rotor diameters should be more economically optimal, taking into account typical wind turbine and land costs.
This conclusion has been reached by research conducted by Charles Meneveau of the Johns Hopkins University and Johan Meyers of Leuven University in Belgium, based on computer simulations that take into account the detailed interactions among wind turbines (wakes) as well as with the entire turbulent atmospheric boundary layer.
Moreover, recent research by John Dabiri of Caltech suggests that vertical wind turbines may be placed much more closely together so long as an alternating pattern of rotation is created allowing blades of neighbouring turbines to move in the same direction as they approach one another.
Frank Martens
Summerland
