A 600 kilowatt wind turbine is considered to be the workhorse of wind farms worldwide. Such a machine in Canada costs $1.2 million to install, has a 50 meter tower, and a 43 meter blade diameter. They cost $6,000 per year to maintain, but pay for themselves in about 8 years. Wind turbines are so far the least expensive form of renewable energy. However it doesn't really make sense to build them for the transportation industry since, after all, electric cars aren't practical yet. But how about this:

Canadians consume 64.75 gigawatts of non-renewable electrical power. This comes from nuclear, coal & oil-fired powerplants. Replacing this would require us to build just 15 new wind turbines per day - one in each Canadian city - and would cost just $209.92 per person, per year, over 20 years. Plus wind turbines tend to pay for themselves in 8 years, after which our electrical bills would decrease substantially!

That's all it would take to get rid of nuclear, coal *and* oil from the power generation industry.

I know this isn't space-related, but what do you say we do just that ? It could be the next thing to inspire people, like the Apollo program. And we wouldn't have to live in Houston to get a close up look at the green machine, the highest of the high-tech. We would all have our very own giant wind turbine.

:-)