Back in the good ole' days when the government was giving away tax credits for those who invested in wind turbine generators, those generators were relatively small and although killing birds due to the speed of the blades, they had little if any real change to the environment.
Today, that's not the case, as these wind generators are getting higher and higher in the sky.
The composite blades are also getting bigger and bigger and believe it or not they cause a bit of turbulence.
Really, no one should be surprised by this and one giant wind generator by itself is not too big of a deal for neighboring crops.
But for wind turbines to really make sense they are going to have to be clustered in big numbers (wind fields) so they can hook into large nearby transmission lines.
By clustering them closely they can enjoy the economies of scale needed to make sense (when the wind is blowing that is).
But, now we have a huge new problem and one that really wasn't even a consideration in the good ole' days of wind generation in the US, that is one of severe turbulence.
This can play havoc on crops, which will also compete for space.
Theoretically, it would be nice to have crops down below and wind turbines in the sky, but apparently they may be completely incompatible.
Maybe we ought to start getting real on the issues of wind generators before we go hog wild and spend huge amounts of taxpayer's monies in subsidies only to find out later it was a ill-conceived plan and simply not viable.
I challenge the industry to come clean, because in the end wind power may not be all that green.
Think on this.