Wind power plan a lot of hot air

I have noticed over the last few months several Herald articles on wind power usage as it relates to the Chicago area. All of them stress the supposed green, low-cost nature of wind. The problem is wind power, like most green initiatives, doesn't work as advertised. This is not a difficult concept to grasp but is seldom mentioned in news stories: What happens to your air conditioner when the wind isn't blowing? What happens is the old-fashioned thermal electric power plant (nuclear, coal, gas) kicks in to take over when the wind isn't blowing. No electricity is generated below 10 mph and very little below 20 mph. Each of these 40-story wind towers require 137 acres meaning replacing one CommEd 1.15GW nuclear plant would require 260,000 acres, roughly the land area of Lake County. The electric grid works with "base load" plants providing constant energy needs while "spinning reserves" are running as backup in case there is sudden increase in need (think hot July afternoon) or one of the base load plants goes offline for some reason. "Spinning reserves" get their name because they are running (spinning their turbines) at all times, i.e. burning coal or gas even though they are not providing any power to the grid. Wind power is not reliable enough to provide "base load" or "spinning reserves." The wind blows for a while then it slows or stops then it goes back up, etc. Inconsistent power sources are very hard on the grid because of the constant starting and stopping of all of the components. Since wind power needs to be backed up by thermal power virtually 100 percent of the time, there is minuscule reduction in CO2 and energy costs are actually increased. Wind farms would not exist if not subsidized by taxpayers. No electric utility in the world would buy wind energy if not forced to do so by legislative fiat i.e. legal requirements forcing utilities to buy a certain percentage of energy from so-called renewable resources. We pay for wind power then we pay again for thermal power to back it up. In Europe where wind power has been used for over 20 years this is well known. In fact national studies in Ireland, England, Denmark and Germany have all come to the same conclusion. E. on Netz, Germany's largest grid operator, said it best in their report "Wind Power 2005:" "The relative contribution of wind power to the guaranteed capacity of our supply system up to the year 2020 will fall continuously to around 4 percent. In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW only 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by wind power."

Since we know wind-power doesn't work why are we being forced to pay for it? Why do un-elected environmentalists have more say about policy than voters? And why is science being subverted by ideology?

Bill Zettler

Mundelein