Colby Cosh Breaks Wind
In the National Post no less:
It is starting to look as though wind cannot meet more than a fraction of our energy demand even if other issues with the technology, like esthetics and wildlife impacts, are ignored. The problem, as engineers skeptical of wind power have been yelping for decades, is that power usage and production constantly have to be balanced in an electrical grid. Adding too much unstable, unpredictable power to the system creates a risk of failure and cascading blackouts. In fact, the EU is investigating the possible role of Germany’s heavy wind-dependence in causing a Nov. 6 blackout that hit 10 million Europeans. national post
Cosh cites a series of depressing facts about Jack Layton’s favorite Kyoto solution. But mainly the problem is that wind is predictably unreliable.
At some point people are going to realize that modern energy solutions are going to use a variety of technologies to reduce demand at the margins. Big wind may be one of them, little wind - the mini-turbine on your roof top - may be another. But the one which I am inclined to think has the most promise is household and neighbourhood geothermal for heating and cooling. It is always the same temperature six to ten feet underground and the differential between surface temperature and below ground allow heating in winter and cooling in summer. Yes, the front end costs are large. yes it is tough to retrofit; but the constant heat of the ground is potentially a way of providing all household heating and cooling, carbon free, everywhere in Canada but the High Arctic.
Written by jay on November 22nd, 2006 with
6 comments.
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jay
#1. November 22nd, 2006, at 8:58 AM.
Let’s see if this commenting works now.
I have done some electricity work and there is one thing that can be done with it that big wind would be able to do on a reasonable basis - pump water up hill. That is one primary way large amounts of electricity can be stored behind a dam (or over-heated systems can get some relief.) So it is not only that there needs to be a mix of systems each providing power but also integration of those alternative systems. Saying big wind is a flop is like saying asphalt was a flop before the internal combustion engine…but Cosh is so MSM and mini-MSM at that, writing for the NP.