Big efforts lead to big failures.
IMO, that's the problem with the 'alternative energy' crowd. Like the best of the commissars, they think in terms of massive 5-year projects covering hundreds of square miles. I guess they can't imagine anything happening without government programs / money / control.
It doesn't have to be that way ... and the proof was made right here in the USA.
Up into the 40's, many rural homes had their power supplied by small windmills. These windmills worked in slower winds, were self-feathering, and did yeoman service. When the "Rural Electrification Administration" came along, these folk were required to destroy the generators - most often by tipping them off their mounts, to crash into the ground below. There many sit, to this day.
OK, so there were very real interconnection issues. We've since solved those problems. I'd rather see every home with a quiet 1KW unit, than have to depend upon thousnads of whopper bird choppers filling the middle of Nevada.
