At the Alabama Policy Institute (a tremendous organization), Cameron Smith today has a superb column on national energy policy, with great statistics about how many usable energy sources the United States still retains, and about the comparative efficiencies of those sources. He is particularly brutal about the lack of practicality of large-scale wind farms:

 
These less traditional energy sources also have their own efficiency challenges.  According to the Wind Capital Group, “[o]n open, flat terrain, a utility-scale wind farm will require about 100 acres per MW of installed capacity.” By contrast, even a large nuclear generator takes up less than one acre per MW.  To replace the coal-generated electric capacity in the United States with wind would require almost 46 million acres, slightly less than the combined size of the entire states of Alabama and West Virginia.

Read the whole thing. Good stuff.