Reply #3: Stored "electricity" is energy

[wtmusic]

and is measured in joules, watt-hours, megawatt-hours, etc. As a grid commodity electricity is sold by watts because it is sold on demand, but wind generation is worth far less in those terms ("we'd love to sell you half a megawatt next Thursday, but we simply don't know if the wind will be blowing"). So measuring energy generated by the wind makes more sense, as well as looking forward to some kind of storage mechanism which will be feasible.

It would be wonderful if the wind could supply our power needs, but wanting it doesn't make it so. The act of harnessing the power -- constructing the turbines, the generators, transporting them, setting them up, maintaining them, and ultimately dismantling them, in exchange for a relatively meager and fickle source of power adds up to a net negative for the environment.

I would also like to see a "dust to dust" assessment of wind plants, but they seem to be very hard to come by. I sure as hell am not going to fork over $51.