This is more or less equivalent to accelerated amortisation of existing wind farms (for the record, the latter seems more sensible, since it avoids boom-and-bust cycles in the construction industry). The problem with that is that it depends on the timing of the gas troughs. It works well when you have time to aggressively amortise your loans before the gas slump hits. But if your new construction comes online during a slump, you go tits-up real quick.

Given that it takes at least two years from the time you start committing serious money to a wind farm and until it goes online, this means that you have to be able to predict gas prices 2-4 years into the future. If you can do that, you can make better money playing liar's poker in the futures market.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.