Wind power is costly, ineffective source of electricity

T. Boone Pickens is being lionized for his efforts to legislate a transformation to eco-friendly wind energy.

If Congress would simply "mandate the formation of wind and solar corridors," provide eminent domain authority for transmission lines, and renew the subsidies for this energy, America can make the switch in a decade, he says in a $58-million media pitch that makes good ad copy. But his policy prescriptions would bring new energy, economic, legal and environmental problems -- and a price tag of over $1.2 trillion.

Wind contributes more every year to our energy mix, but still provides only 1% of our electricity -- compared with 49% for coal, 22% for natural gas, 19% for nuclear and 7% for hydroelectric.

We can and should harness the wind, but 22% of our electricity by 2020 is far-fetched.

Wind power is expensive (even with subsidies), intermittent and unreliable. Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot, 7-ton, bird-slicing blades. They operate at only 20%-30% of rated efficiency -- compared with 85% for coal, gas and nuclear plants -- and provide little power during summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but winds are at low ebb.

Using wind to replace all gas-fired power plants would require more than 300,000 1.5-MW turbines, covering Midwestern "wind belt" agricultural and wildlife acreage equivalent to the size of South Carolina.

Building and installing these turbines requires 5 to 10 times more steel and concrete than is needed to build nuclear plants to generate the same electricity more reliably, says Berkeley engineer Per Peterson. Add in steel and cement needed to build transmission lines from distant wind farms to urban consumers, and the costs multiply.

Wind thus means more quarries, mines, cement plants and steel mills to supply those materials. But greens oppose such facilities. So the Pickens proposal could mean letting existing power plants rust, and importing steel and cement, instead of oil.

A single 1,000-MW nuclear power plant would reliably generate more electricity than 2,800 1.5-MW intermittent wind turbines on 175,000 acres. Permitting more nukes would meet increasing electricity demand for our growing population and millions of plug-in hybrid cars.

Coal offers centuries of affordable, reliable fuel for electricity and synthetic gas and oil, with steadily diminishing emissions. Between 1970 and 2006, coal-fired electricity generation nearly tripled -- while nitrogen oxide emissions remained at 1970 levels, sulfur dioxide pollution fell nearly 40% below 1970 emissions, and fine particulates declined to 90% below 1970 levels.

That leaves Climate Armageddon as the primary rationale for wind power.

Al Gore, James Hansen and various legislators claim fossil fuels are destroying the planet. But 32,000 scientists have signed the consensus-busting Oregon Petition, saying they see "no convincing scientific evidence" that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. China is building two new coal-fired power plants every month, to power electricity-hungry homes and businesses. India, too, is charging ahead with hydrocarbon-based energy. Both are rightly more concerned about saving people from poverty than from speculative climate chaos.

People are catching on that their hot air is no basis for economy-killing cap-and-trade rules or ecology-killing forests of wind turbines.

We need to safeguard access to the opportunities created by abundant, reliable, affordable energy -- from all sources -- as a fundamental right of people the world over.