[Saberwielder]

Wind is unreliable and cannot be more than a small fraction of US supply given our grid requirements. Too much wind power in a grid will cause it to crash. Ideally we sshould have nuclear power covering majority of the baseload and a few gas plants taking care of the peak demand.

[Koblenz]

Nuclear and wind don’t mix well, because it is difficult to alter the output of a nuke plant. So wind really needs to be backed up with coal or gas.

[WayneLusvardi]

What this deceptive news article doesn’t say is for how long did wind power hit 43% of base load? Was it 5 minutes or one hour or what? Let’s give it the benefit of doubt and say it was one hour - that’s still a very very small amount of electricity production compared to total demand in one day (1.8% of daily demand). Also, you can’t predict when this 43% of electricity will be available. And you still have to pay conventional energy suppliers (coal, gas, nuclear) to generate backup power (which has to be paid for) because wind power is so unreliable. Forty three percent of pure redundant power is not much to brag about.

[Old North State]

Wind is unreliable and cannot be more than a small fraction of US supply...
Amen to that, wind power requires 100% available(on line) redundant backup for the electric grid. That means you cannot shed any power generation costs related to peak demand because it would only be a coincidence if wind energy was available at that moment to meet the demand. Wind power could theoretically be used to power energy storage like pumping water uphill , but that would usually occur during off-peak grid times anyway(at night).

[truthguy]

Wind is unreliable and cannot be more than a small fraction of US supply given our grid requirements. Too much wind power in a grid will cause it to crash. Ideally we sshould have nuclear power covering majority of the baseload and a few gas plants taking care of the peak demand.

I'm almost in complete agreement. We need nuclear for baseload and coal and/or gas plants as peakers whatever is the most practical. I like coal better than nat gas because using nat gas to generate electricity is not a good use of this valuable fuel which can be used for transportation and many other industrial and commercial purposes. I use nat gas for heating my home and cooking. The price increases we are getting is killing me. This is because we use so much nat gas in electrical power plants. This is a SIN.

[billva]

Wind is unreliable and cannot be more than a small fraction of US supply given our grid requirements. Too much wind power in a grid will cause it to crash. Ideally we sshould have nuclear power covering majority of the baseload and a few gas plants taking care of the peak demand.

I agree about nuclear power, but do not agree about wind power crashing the grid. It does call for more backup, but that would be with existing plants that would operate at reduced power and it would still result in a savings of fossil fuel.

I am at a loss why folks here want to trash wind power. It's not good everywhere in the country, but in the midwest it can generate a lot of power and save fossil fuel for the country.