Wind power isn't the answer

Wind power has its roots in small-scale implementations, and at this level it has some value. This was the case for the leader in wind development for most of the 20th century, the United States, and for European countries such as Denmark and Germany. Because of attractive government subsidization, a wind turbine industry was born and industrial wind plants emerged.

As Denmark and Germany have discovered, though, once wind power approaches mid-to-high single digits as a percentage of the total capacity of the electricity system, the problems of its unreliable and highly fluctuating nature become evident. At this level, wind power's sole effect is to stress the electricity grid and the shadowing backup power plants, the latter being necessary to supply a steady, reliable supply of electricity. Any further expansion decreases wind power's value from ineffective and problematic to nonsensical.

There is a large energy content worldwide in wind and solar power, but there are considerable practical difficulties in harvesting it. Solar power will likely be the winner, but not for decades, and Germany is now taking a substantial interest in it. This could be the exit strategy from Germany's extensive, premature and ineffectual implementation of industrial wind power.

In the meantime, Germany is implementing 25,000 megawatts worth of new coal plants over the next few years, which is almost the total generation capacity of Ontario. If it goes ahead with the planned removal of its nuclear plants by 2021, the increase in CO2 emissions will be 100 million tons per year. Germany's $40-billion investment in wind power has made little, if any, difference.

Conventional wisdom, of which public opinion is a component, supports industrial wind power well beyond its negligible merits for electricity generation and CO2 emissions reduction. Although not well-informed, this popular view is understandable because of concerns about climate change, media hype, political policies that claim to address this issue, pronouncements by environmentalists stepping outside their area of expertise, and effective promotion by wind power organizations. Europe is looked to, undeservedly, as a model. This drives a political motivation for governments to take action in support of wind power, and for opposition parties to criticize any apparent lack of action. It has made having "green" credentials a political necessity.

We are about to learn for ourselves what the Europeans already know but are not overly open and direct about: that wind power is ineffective above small, community-based implementations. Having developed the necessary industries, the Europeans are more than happy to sell us large wind turbines, or, alternatively, to build manufacturing plants here (with considerable financial assistance to them from our governments, of course).

Kent Hawkins Picton