POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMNBY CHRISTOPHER BOOKER IN THE TELEGRAPH
The author makes some very good points.
Here's another very important one he missed.
Wind turbines provide intermittent power, and they are completely incapable of ever replacing what energy analysts call base-load power.
Base-load power comes from nuclear or coal or hydroelectric: it is power that is produced and may be called upon twenty-four hours a day.
Wind turbines operate - like 17th century sailing ships - only when there is sufficient wind. In most locations this is only a fraction of the day.
Another important point: wind-generated power costs about twice as much per unit of energy as some of our conventional sources.
So wind power is both unreliable in the timing of its availability and costly for what you get. Indeed, some research starting to emerge seriously questions the economic rationality of massive wind turbine projects like those in Germany.
