Back in 1981, no one knew how cheap wind power would or could get.

How much would technical learning drive down manufacturing costs? How much would economies of scale help? The list of questions was long and the list of answers was short.

So, people working on wind had to make some assumptions. One struck me as particularly interesting. It’s perhaps the simplest heuristic that I’ve ever seen. In a publication called “Wind Energy Developments in the 20th Century,” NASA chose to estimate the ultimate cost of wind power by weight:

To estimate what the cost of a wind turbine might eventually be in production, it was assumed that wind turbines could be fabricated, assembled, and installed for a cost of $2 to $3 per pound. This is a rather simplistic way to estimate the cost of a mature product, but available data show that many machinery items such as large tractors, power shovels, and steam turbines are fabricated, assembled, and distributed for $2 to $3 per pound.

I haven’t found many references to this method of cost estimation. Anyon know if NASA was right about this? Does anyone still estimate ultimate cost this way?