The industry's success in Texas (where my company is based, and which is the nation's largest and cheapest producer of wind power) suggests that wind farms do make sense in relatively windy areas where electricity shortages occur.

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Even less windy states can achieve similar results, Kelley adds, thanks to low-wind and community-scale turbines.

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Growing up in Texas, Knost is not unfamiliar with windy conditions and he confesses that he would not be unduly fazed by the wind "getting up to 20 or 30 mile an hour this weekend".

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