[kamran20]

Wind and geothermal is good options as well. The biggest problem is storage.

[yoodenvranx]

A big problem with wind energy in Germany is a very vocal minority of old people who think that wind park visually destructs nature and it looks horrible.

Personally I think wind parks look awesome but there is a lot of opposition.

[jeffreyrogers]

When I was in middle or high school the town where I grew up put a wind farm in, despite lots of opposition. After a while you don't even notice the wind farm anymore and now no one even comments about it.

[tvchurch]

That's what I mean. Wind might be generated "for free," but one cost is what it looks like.

Another is how many birds it kills a year. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-w...)

That's not to say we shouldn't build it. Just that we need to consider what it costs before we do.

[ZeroGravitas]

If you check what bird conservation organisations say, they are generally pro wind power, because most of the alternatives are worse for birds.

They do want to avoid building them on busy migration routes though.

Amazingly popular talking point amongst hypocritical fossil fuel industry supporters and semi-professional contrarians though.

[tvchurch]

Sure. Anyone pro- or anti-wind will say whatever argument they can to try to convince people.

All I'm saying is before we decide to build more wind turbines, we should have an honest accounting of all of the benefits and costs laid out. There are locations where they make sense and places where they don't. And there are levels where some government support might make sense, and some levels where they don't.

Even if people support one form of power generation over another, there should always be a limit.

[epistasis]

I don't think that there's an equal distribution of people willing to say whatever in favor of their end goals. Certainly not "anybody." Most pro-wind people are that way because of an honest accounting of the pros and cons, as there's no other reason to be in favor of it. There's not a super-strong political or economic constituency behind it. Those who are anti-wind however...

[tvchurch]

Right, and making sure the base load of energy generation is stable.

We'll get there. I'd just like to make sure we remember that absolutely everything has a cost. The cost of anything is the value it has in its alternative uses.

If we're subsidizing renewable energy, we're not spending money on something else (and we're reducing people's incomes in the process).

[JaRail]

It was mentioned in the article that a worrying point with wind is that the costs have not been coming down. The cost of solar panels has been cut in half over the last few years while hardware for wind has remained roughly constant. Of course wind is deserving of further investment. As far as predictions go, however, solar is looking more promising.