[Pontiac]

Or they could build one small nuke plant...

NO they couldn’t the EPA will never give them the permits.

But wind turbines will get an exemption for bird kills.

For a nuke plant every bird that strike and kills their cooling tower must be counted and reported.

Harming or killing a raptor is a federal offence punishable by fine and imprisonment.

Wind turbines kill hundreds every year but the owner operators escape punishment.

Government hypocrisy and insanity.

To solve an unproven problem we are instituting a solution that cost more than any alternative and creates more sever problems than the unproven problem we seek to cure.

[nascarnation]

Govt needs to hire folks to harvest the shredded poultry downstream to feed to the starving victims of the endless Baraqqi Depression.

[cripplecreek]

From my reading and research it looks like the cost of refurbishing and reinstalling turbines in a small dam is similar to erecting one of these windmills. However the useful life of a windmill is between 10 and 25 years at the most. Hydroelectric turbines on the other hand have a service life of 50 years or more. The dams can last for hundreds of years. (The one next to my house is more than 150 years old now)

Just an offhand estimate gives dams about a 4 to 1 cost advantage over wind. When you take into account the fact that a water turbine produces power 24 hours per day, 365 days per year for decades the cost effectiveness of a dam over wind probably goes well beyond 10 to 1 over wind.

This map shows where the dams in Michigan are. Not all would be useful for power generation obviously but if you could put a couple dozen back into electricity production, they'll far surpass 3700 windmills in both cost effectivness and actual generation capacity.



BTW, here is a feasibility study for repowering two small dams in Ann Arbor Michigan.

HYDROELECTRIC REDEVELOPMENT ARGO AND GEDDES DAMS FEASIBILITY STUDY(pdf)