All wind turbines become obsolete overnight. $330 billion in federal grants apparently wasted.

Photo above - There's so much wrong here, I don't know where to begin. A helicopter attempts to "de-ice" wind turbine blades in freezing weather. Are you safer in the chopper, or on the ground?

The race to build the biggest wind turbine is over. Stop immediately. We don’t need them anymore. Don’t begin a single new erection. China, this especially means you.

A Spanish company called Vortex just invented something fantastically better. No US taxpayer money involved. See link below.

First of all, I do NOT hate "normal” wind turbines. Except for the noise, bird decapitation (entire flocks at a time) and the need to toss the used blades in the ocean and hope they become reef habitats instead of navigation hazards. Other than that wind farms are fine. I’d even buy a small turbine for personal use, if zoning regulations allowed it. But here in Tampa they don't, for all the reasons noted above.

The new Vortex device captures wind energy, but without giant blades 400 feet long. The device evidently rocks and vibrates in the breeze. A flagpole without a flag. The working mechanism – generating the power – is safely in the base. We will no longer need $150,000 turbine repair guys climbing 800 feet high to oil the gears, etc. If anyone was following the AI recommendation that this will be the job of the future, ask for your tuition back now. We will still probably need solar panel installers, however.

I won’t pretend the Vortex flagpole farms are super attractive. But they are less obnoxious than today's wind turbines. If you put Vortex poles far enough offshore, they're going to blend into the horizon, like miniature toothpicks. And Vortex poles aren't insanely expensive to build, install, and maintain.

If you've read this far, and are waiting for my usual rant, here’s your reward: The government should NOT be picking winners and losers, in any industry or technology. A bunch of septuagenarian politicians partying in DC are probably the LEAST qualified folks to decide how electricity should be generated, or what an EV battery is made of, or if nuclear power is “safe enough”.

Allow the marketplace and consumers make these choices. Let corporations to bear the cost, not taxpayers. Just tell us the number of bird decapitations, and the half life of those spent nuclear fuel rods.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

New bladeless wind turbine generates clean, quiet, bird-safe power

Wind Power Facts and Statistics | ACP