They claim it will power 1000 homes.

Have you verified that statment?

A recent report on German Windfarms had the Capacity at 14%. But lets say we were getting 25% capacity as an Ontario, Canada report stated.

Those so called 1000 homes would need either a hydro electric dam hopefully, but more often than not a coal or gas fired back up for the remaining 75% of the time, to be ramped up when the wind dies.
Vertical Turbines are smaller, no need for red flashing lights at night, but more efficeint.
Wind ports, made in Canada have the added benefit of an exterior housing, preventing Bird and Bat kills.
There are better ways to harness the wind and reduce Carbon Emissions.

How much does a wind turbine cost (in US dollars)?

I just saw a news report that Bush is asking for 254 billion more dollars for war. This will bring the total for war to 750 billion.

If 750 billion were spent for wind turbines, how many would we have?

How many megawatts of power would a 750 billion dollar investment in wind turbines produce?

How many homes would this power?

"How much does a wind turbine cost (in US dollars)?"

AFAIK, most big wind turbines (between 1 and 1.5 megawatts) are between 1 and 2 million dollars.

The appearance of a wind turbine may not be beautiful, but I do not find them to actually be offensive, especially when I consider the fact that they help to reduce pollution.

They DO trouble me in one regard: They are known to be harmful to birds and bats.

The idea of placing turbines in industrialized areas may be a good one in that there is a lower likelihood of harm to wildlife. (On the other hand, what wildlife exists in such areas may already be struggling, and a wind turbine could make things worse.)

If only we could implement my own CRAZY idea: Somehow install wind turbines on other planets or moons where there is a great deal of wind, and then bring the energy produced to Earth. There would be no harm to wildlife at all. Can you imagine the amount of power that could be generated by Jupiter's Great Red Spot?

From my eyes, they are literally blowing away CO2 emissions. beauty is not only skin deep!

@ first comment

you seem to confuse capacity factor, capacity credit and the percentage of time electricity is produced.

The capacity factor of windturbines in Germany is about 21%, i.e. on average they produce 21% of their maximum power . One should note that is an average of the most modern and many older windturbines from the early days of the technology.

The 14% you mention is probably the capacity credit, i.e. for 1000 MW wind you can remove 140 MW of conentional power.

Nobody assummes a capacityfactor of 100%, except for strawmen in the argumentation of windpower opponents.

Windturbines produce electricity 70 to 85% of the time.

Windturbines do not produce electricty in isolation.As any other powerplant they produce electricity as part of a larger system. A system that is very well equiped to deal with variable demand and sudden unexpected outages of conventional powerplants. Several scientific studies show that at least 20% of the electricty can be produced with wind energy without significant changes to the rest of the production system.

The disadvantage of windturbines in industrial areas is the poor quality of the wind there. Not only is the average wind speed lower, there is also more turbulence which reduces the yield and the life-span of the turbine.

The effect of windturbines on birds and bats is highly overrated. The mirror wall on the building in the first picture is likely to cause a multitude of bird deaths of the windturbine.

If you realy want to save birds:

Stop driving a car (traffic is the largest cause of unnatural bird deaths)
Stick birds of prey pictures on windows of high rise building.
Put a bell on the collar of your cat.
Protest against coal power plants.

I think CO2 emissions are ugly.

The problem with Wind turbines in natural areas is that they make it so that it is impossible to get out into the wild.

Every 'green' person seems to like the look of them now, but in 5 yrs when it becomes painfully obvious that these turbines are one of the best ways to take your tax dollars and hand them over to big business, and these turbines start to look like any industrial facilty, ie, rusty and noisy - will we realize that we have been had.

The real way to reduce CO2, at least in North America, is not though frivolous energy generation shemes, but conservation.

--Tom Andersen

Wind Turbines are large industrial constructions, no matter where they are situated. The thing in their favour at the moment is that they are not as ugly as a coal station, both in terms of aesthetics and the way they operate.

I think down the line this 'novelty' will wear off, as people do realise that they are industrializing the countryside.

So if we really want to reduce emissions and have an attractive environment.....surely we need to live a life without electricity??

Bird and bat death from wind turbines is just about the lowest cause of their fatalities. pollution is the worst problem for birds and wind power helps to solve this.

the problem with wind is the variable energy output and the inability of the grid to handle it. an interesting idea being worked on is storing the wind energy as hydrogen, which can then be used for fuel cells, zeppelins (: etc.

I'm just estimating here, but if Iraq can pump out 30 million bbl of oil per day at $60/bbl, then the US stands to earn about $657 billon in one year, with a payback period for the war of about 2 years.

@ previous commenters:

The question is not if the electricty production and transport system can deal with windenergy, but with how much windenergy. Recent scientific reports all come to the same conclusion: at least 20%.

Owners of windturbines get paid per kWh. They would be very silly to neglect the maintenance of their windturbines. In Denmark and Germany There are many windturbines older than 20 years that are not rusty and still working. When they are replaced it is mainly because the technology has developed considerably and with modern windturbines you can get a much higher yield at the same location.

In my point of view modern mono-culture farming has permantly and structurally ruined the landscape. Wind-turbines are just and add-on with little consequence.

Their impacts on the mountain ridges of the northeast and mid-Atlantic U.S. are not of "little consequence." It does seem, however, that wind's ability to reduce the use of other fuels (in plants that simply switch from generation to standby, to be ready for a drop in the wind) is indeed of little consequence.