The uselessness of wind power revealed

Two huge and unmistakable messages leap out of the graph. Wind farms spend most of their time not generating power, or not generating very much. They can move quickly from producing a lot or quite a lot of power to zero… Second, even though spread right across southern Australia, they tend to produce or not produce at much the same time. A second analysis, from engineer and power industry authority Peter Lang, shows three equally devastating and simple conclusions. Wind power does not avoid significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. It is a very, very high-cost way to avoid such emissions - costing between $830 and $1149 to avoid one tonne of CO2 emitted per MWh as against just $22 with nuclear power. And wind power, even with high capacity penetration, could never make a significant contribution to reducing those emissions.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous