How do those numbers compare with the nuclear power plants in Japan that are down for good?
The fastest way Japan has of getting back to minimum electrical production to power the nation is with windmills.
While the naysayers criticize, the smart money is building bigger and better windmills all over the world.
THe small ones are good combined with solar panels if you are in a windy sunny place.
Sincere question:
Why is the smart money on an industry that can never generate more than 25% of your energy needs, is unreliable as it only works when the wind blows, and from everything published here only is built in the first place with massive subsidies and continued financial support? When did it become economically competitive with existing sources?
I’d like to know. Maybe what I have read is out of date.
There is nothing dumber than believing windmills will ever be the answer to anything. They are worse than worthless for electrical generation and always will be. It's just physics.
The fact that people can't face up to that obvious truth is just a case study in the human capacity for denial.
While those plants were operating, they probably dwarfed the useful output of every windmill on the planet; and did so 24/7/365. I'm sure they are greatly missed. Nobody would have missed windmills that got washed away.
The fact that they were, for some reason, designed poorly and dependent on external power when internal power was plentiful, doesn't change the fact that nuclear power works and wind power doesn't, and never will.
Here, let me fix that:
While the naysayers criticize, the smart money is using government subsidies to building bigger and better windmills, where ever governments are stupid enough to screw their own taxpayers, in the name of "going green" all over the world.
Its even worse than this story makes out. Not only are the windmills producing power at a small fraction of what was promised, this past winter was so cold in the British Isles that the power companies had to use electricity, from coal, or nuclear, to heat some of these wind turbines, to keep the generators from being damaged by the cold.