A very good metric on a new technology is if people replace it with the same technology when the original installation wears out. From the Canada's Calgary Herald:
Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard after 23 years
The oldest commercial wind power facility in Canada has been shut down and faces demolition after 23 years of transforming brisk southern Alberta breezes into electricity — and its owner says building a replacement depends on the next moves of the provincial NDP government.
TransAlta Corp. said Tuesday the blades on 57 turbines at its Cowley Ridge facility near Pincher Creek have already been halted and the towers are to be toppled and recycled for scrap metal this spring. The company inherited the now-obsolete facility, built between 1993 and 1994, as part of its $1.6-billion hostile takeover of Calgary-based Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. in 2009.
“TransAlta is very interested in repowering this site. Unfortunately, right now, it’s not economically feasible,” Wayne Oliver, operations supervisor for TransAlta’s wind operations in Pincher Creek and Fort Macleod, said in an interview.
In other words, wind power is not economically feasible unless it is subsidized by the government. Since the government makes essentially no money of its own, these subsidies come from the taxpayers. TransAlta is asking the Canadian government for a substantial handout.
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