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Re:'Wind theft': The mysterious effect plaguing wind farms by Ekaros on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @04:16AM (#44178394)
In the capitalist environment it does. At least if we do not want state intervention. In general money does not get invested in known unprofitable ventures. There might be bets on profitability. But profit is always expected.
Re:'Wind theft': The mysterious effect plaguing wind farms by Dylan16807 on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @05:35AM (#44178854)
A couple farms that barely make profit are already going to be unattractive to investors. It really doesn't make much difference to future investment. There's not a massive sea change between 1% profit and 2% loss, they both suck. Investors are going to focus on the higher profit farms no matter what, ones that would still be positive if they lose 3%.

Other things can go right or wrong and change the numbers by a couple percent. That risk is pretty normal. It's not something wild.

And any farm that's already running or even half-built is still going to be finished and maintained and make as much power as it can. Once you already spent a big percent of the budget you're not getting it back, and the ROI on the remaining spending is very high.

Re:'Wind theft': The mysterious effect plaguing wind farms by vlovich123 on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @03:51PM (#44184787)
The challenge is that your neighbor building a wind farm next to you changes your profitability. That uncertainty isn't priced in. I think you're really assuming someone here is saying "stop building wind farms" vs "this is a problem investors in the space will need to account for as this scales up more"
Re:'Wind theft': The mysterious effect plaguing wind farms by Dylan16807 on Wednesday June 04, 2025 @04:23PM (#44185076)
I don't disagree with your description of the problem in this comment. But the OP was perfectly fine if it's just something "to account for" on the scale of 3%.

Your strong dismissal of OP, and talking about how it "could be the entire profit margin", made it sound a lot more serious than it is, and that's why I disagreed with how you were commenting earlier and posted a counterargument.