NYSERDA wants wind power in New York. In order to help get it, they're spending taxpayer money for a wind study of the entire state. However, that study has not yet been released.

I spoke with someone at AWS/Truewind some time ago. I was told that the study had been completed months ago, but NYSERDA wanted some 'tweaking' of the data. Mr. Briggs is perhaps a better person to ask about that than I -- I'm no meteorologist. Still, I am a computer scientist and 'tweaked' means to me that NYSERDA wants the data adjusted favorably for their preferred outcome. I'm sure that AWS will only tweak it within an acceptible range of variables, but still -- would you rather have 'tweaked' data or the original?

Well, here you go. Click through this thumbnail to see a map of Bethany's wind at 100m (about 330ft). Coincidentally, this is the tower height of UPC's turbines. You'll see a large number of colors. Green = forget about it. Light pink = only viable for agricultural use (not enough wind for electricity generation, but enough to maybe pump water for an irrigation system). Dark pink = Barely viable. Yellow = Reasonably viable.

As you can see, there isn't a whole lot of viable in Bethany. Most of it is barely so. More telling is this map, an average of sustained wind speeds -- sustained wind being a better indicator (or so many parties say) of the commercial success of a wind project. Bright orange, here, indicates areas that could possibly be successful. Again, there's some but not a whole lot.

Here are the same maps for Stafford. They appear to be in a better position wind-wise: