Thursday, February 03, 2005
Second thoughts about wind power
A Daily Telegraph article this week entitled Germany shelves report on wind farm produced energy (see link; free registration required) says that 'A damning report warning that wind-farm programmes will greatly increase energy costs and that "greenhouse gases" can be reduced easily by conventional methods has been shelved.' It emphasises the high cost of wind power and the fact that standby capacity, running inefficiently, needs to be on hand to cope with the highly variable output of wind farms.
This is not to say that wind power is inappropriate under all circumstances; just that it is at best a small part of the move to a greater variety of power generation sources.
The way to avoid such mistakes is, as always, to concentrate on effects rather than slavishly pursuing politically correct routes to a solution. Flexibility of thought and action is the key.
This is not to say that wind power is inappropriate under all circumstances; just that it is at best a small part of the move to a greater variety of power generation sources.
The way to avoid such mistakes is, as always, to concentrate on effects rather than slavishly pursuing politically correct routes to a solution. Flexibility of thought and action is the key.
