" With the major government investments in wind in the 1970s, the United States was poised to be a dominant player in what was clearly going to be one of the biggest job-creating industries of the next hundred years. "

Yes, and we almost cornered the Super Sonic Transport market as well. Thank goodness Denmark won the wind competition and France / England won the SST competition.

Denmark gets most of its electricity from fossil fuel and has the highest electricity  prices in the world.

Solar energy has breakthrough potential, but wind is just a fad the world is going through.

Denmark has been pushing wind extremely hard since 1979, yet they get most of their electricity from fossil fuel and have the most expensive electricity in the world. Residential electricity in Denmark cost 1.92 DKK/kWh in 2007, 40 cents / kWh. In the U.S. it was about 9 cents / kWh.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-0 ...

Wind power in the state of California, down to 4% on peak for several days during the 2006 heat wave.

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Wind- ...

The entire U.S.  wind output was down 20% below average during the heat wave while the demand was 20% above average. Nuclear power was 10% above average because outages are scheduled for spring and fall when demand is low.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.h ...

That is based on monthly averages. I would love to see a detailed graph of total U.S. wind output for one year, with one minute, or at least one hour resolution. I'll bet there are times when it is less than 10% of data plate rating.

  " Conservatives like John McCain, or more accurately, conservatives including John McCain, are the main reason McCain has to go to a Danish wind turbine manufacturer to give a climate speech. "

McCain gets a lot of credit for taking the message to the wind industry. I don't recall Clinton or Obama coming out against ethanol or farm subsidies in Iowa.