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Short answer
So, the costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW installed, most have about two MW.
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There are no hidden costs for anything, and no, wind turbines do not cause cancer.
Let’s assume a $4 million 2MW turbine, maintenance is negligible, when compared. The US use about 4 trillion kWh per year, that’s 4000 trillion watt-hours
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, Assuming that a turbine runs only on 200 days out of the year, and only for ten hours, then one turbine produces 4 billion watt-hours (4 GWh) per year, so you would need 1 million such turbines across the US, at no extra cost for twenty years, and no one dies, no one gets sick. So 1 million times $4 million, that’s $4 trillion, over twenty years though, that’s $200 billion per year, total cost. Let’s add 25% for maintenance, that adds up to $250 billion per year and you have free, clean, renewable electric power in the US for twenty years. (compare that with just the $650 billion in fossil fuel subsidies per year). I realise, you would need more electric power, as fossil fuel powered vehicles would go electric etc, or hydrogen fuel cell, but the cost ratio will easily be 1/10 in favour of wind, easily. Also, the cost would go down drastically, if that much wind turbines were to be installed.
I say it again, who needs climate change to make renewable energy the sensible, the reasonable, and the economical way to go.
Now let’s do the math on job creation, new inventions, health benefits, social benefits, environmental benefits etc. Sorry, just f*cking with you.
Edit: January 25th 2020
First, let me thank you all for your input and upvotes, I appreciate your interest in the subject.
Some comments addressed open questions and issues on the sideline, or issues on the grand question of the economics of renewables.
Let me sum up what I wrote in the comments, so that I don’t have to repeat myself endlessly.
On nuclear
Nuclear power is ok when there are no other options, otherwise, construction is comparatively prohibitively expensive, and waste storage is still an issue.
The aesthetics of wind turbines
To some, wind turbines are eye sores. If that is you, please refer to the images in my answer, that show you what mining fossil fuels does, not only aesthetically.
Bird Kill
Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually — a small fraction compared with the estimated 6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers and the 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats, according to the peer-reviewed study by two federal scientists and the environmental consulting firm West Inc.
Recyclability of turbines
The end of life of turbines still creates a bit of an issue, their size makes them hard to facilitate landfill space for. Let’s not forget though, that the ingenuity of material scientists is making progress on the recyclability and that the blades that go to landfills aren’t made of poisonous, harmful materials.
My scenario is fiction, my numbers are hypothetical, as stated.
No country should, nor will rely in one energy source alone. A mix of wind, photovoltaic solar, thermal solar (with storage capacity and HVDC lines to deliver the power to far away urban areas) hydro (with and without storage capacity), geothermal, and, where there is no other option, nuclear makes most sense, as is the goal in the EU, and even in China.
