I was once fascinated with the potentials of future energy systems described in magazine like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics – energy systems such as wind turbines.
Now that that future is here, the promise of wind is very tarnished, in my view. Without government subsidies or other supports, wind is not a viable power supply.
A new paper in Euophysics News, – Wind turbines as yet unsuitable as electricity providers, says that we shouldn’t be wasting money on wind energy when the underlying “assumptions have never been validated in existing power distribution systems even after the installation of as much as 86 GW of wind power in Europe alone.”
In the conclusion to the paper, the authors state: “Decisions to install large-scale wind-powered electricity
generation are based more on the expectation to save significant amounts of fossil fuel and CO2 emission than
on any evidence that this is indeed the case.
“Wind technology is not suited for large-scale application without a good buffer and storage system. We propose to
stop spending public money on large-scale use of wind. This money should be spent on R&D of future power
systems. We expect that wind will not play an important role in these future systems.”
(Photo from flickr 
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