It would take 80 years for them to pay for themselves, according to him, and that's not including any repairs or depreciation. IOW, the technology doesn't pay for itself. It makes $ sense to the entities that put them in, but it's a societal money pit because it throws our federal tax dollars away into negative NPV investments.

If turbines were running non-stop and weren't so prone to repair needs, then the energy produced could help more during peak use time and would pay for themselves. So maybe down the road, if battery storage became feasible, or if costs were reduced, then we would be looking at an ideal form of alternative energy.

BTW, I'm totally pro-alternative energy. Just passing along why wind turbines are not all they're cracked up to be. They only provide something like 5% of our total electric output, and that number won't get much higher without a HUGE $Trillion+ investment that would never pay off.

But yeah, excellent (non) rebuttal.