From the Calgary Herald and the “waiting of the government cash cow” department:

Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard after 23 years

By: DAN HEALING, CALGARY HERALD

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.

“We’re anxiously waiting to see what incentives might come from our new government. . . . Alberta is an open market and the wholesale price when it’s windy is quite low, so there’s just not the return on investment in today’s situation. So, if there is an incentive, we’d jump all over that.”

Full story: http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/oldest-commercial-wind-farm-in-canada-headed-for-scrapyard-after-23-years

I’ll bet they would. Does anyone need any more proof that wind power just isn’t economically feasible on large scales without subsidies?

Coal and nuclear plants last longer and provide far more power…and production isn’t tied to the vagaries of wind and weather.

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