[DC Sunshine]

You're right Mike I'm sure about the subsidies - I am no economist (my bank account agrees!) Stored energy in hydro is the only way to go as far as storing energy available, but surely sharing other sustainable energy across a large enough grid would lead to some advantages.

But any saving is a good saving, this all leads into carbon footprint/emissions territory, and I don't have enough energy to go there.

[MaryB]

As far as bird kill they did studies here that proved the kill number was LESS than a tall building. The old lattice towers that were replaced with the round tubular style were bird killers because they were tempting nesting sites.

For storage there is no reason they can't use excess electricity to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen and burn that is a turbine, the only emissions will be water that could be captured and reused.

The biggest issue facing wind energy is getting the power from the wind farms to the population centers. There are 4 or 5 projects on hold near me because of the lack of transmission line capacity. Look up Buffalo Ridge in Minnesota to see one of the larger wind farms.