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.
You need to ask the Bonneville Power Authority about that. They had a near melt down of the NW Grid this year when the wind suddenly came up and kicked up idle wind mills and BPA had to dump water to prevent a overload. We found out at that time that the wind generators had preference even though it cost several cents a KW more than Hydro...