The reason I ask is because I've been thinking about this stuff that came from D'Arcinoff.  If you take them seriously, they plan to have make the equivalent of 3-4% of US electric production annually.  Regardless, there's going to a saturation point as some time in the future, when the industry is mature.  I suppose what I'm wondering is what happens then?

Is there going to be a continuing need for new turbines to replace old ones in the field?  Are old foundations going to be reused? If that's the case the engineering and construction side is going to fall off massively.

I'm planning to go to the  US Social Forum in Detroit this summer, and I think that I may try to see if I can put together a panel of people who can do something on the potential for wind power in the Great Lakes.

One of the other things I've been thinking about is the impact of all these new electric cars coming out on the need for electricity.  Let's say that 100,000 Chevy Volts are sold in 2011.  With an 8 KW battery that will need to be charged daily, that's 800,000 KwH daily.  Nominally, that's 33-34MW of new nameplate capacity needed.  Figure that most of that charging will happen during 8 or so hours at night, and it's more like 100 MW nameplate.  Figure in downtime and capacity factors (I think that's the word I'm reaching for) and you're talking about a new, decent-sized coal fired plant needed.

But imagine if you could work with utilities to sell people green power for their cars.  Like a large up-front payment for a set period like 5 years.  You could use it to finance new wind projects.  Figure $0.15/ kwh (I'm putting the cost real high.)  So that's $1.20 a day, $438/year, $2190 for five years.  If you could sell that to even 5% of those new purchasers, that's about $11 million year......  I wonder if something like that could work. hmmm....

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg