Indeed, Paul Golby, who runs the British operations of E.ON, Europe’s biggest wind-power producer, has told the government that a 90% fossil fuel or nuclear back-up will be needed for any of the National Grid’s future wind-power capacity. As Martin Fuchs, his German boss, pointed out: “The wind, sadly, does not blow where large quantities of power are required . . . on September 12 last year wind power contributed 38% of our grid power requirements at all times, but on September 30 the figure went down to 0.2%.”
All those wind turbines…..they’re just not going to work, are they?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Kit // Jul 19, 2009 at 10:42 am
Surely we will need 100% backup otherwise we will have brown-outs on windless days? Please say our beloved leaders know that.
2 Tim Almond // Jul 19, 2009 at 11:19 am
The article from Der Spiegel, helpfully translated into English, if you’re interested:-
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,606763,00.html
It also has some interesting numbers to do with how best to spend money to save tons of carbon.
3 DocBud // Jul 19, 2009 at 3:39 pm
“It also has some interesting numbers to do with how best to spend money to save tons of carbon”
Or better still, don’t spend taxpayers money on such futile exercises at all. If private individuals want to spend money on building renovations then that is their business but don’t take other people’s money to do it.
4 Monty // Jul 19, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I could understand it if significant resources were being diverted to harness tidal power, because that is reliable and predictable. And if such schemes were also able to mitigate coastal erosion as a by-product, so much the better. But wind power is not proving cost-effective. It can’t, for the reasons listed above, and also because the turbines can’t take advantage of winds above a certain force.
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