There is a lot of chatter about how fast windpower is growing. We're told that windpower is the fastest growing source of electricity, and that we could live on nothing but breezes and sunshine forever, if we really wanted to.
But let’s not get so involved in the various specifics as to lose the basic truth here: windpower needs spinning backup, ready to leap in at any instant. Therefore, the only way that windpower can sell electricity is to replace a source that was already reliably doing the job, and make that reliable source less efficient. This is true whether that reliable source is coal, gas, hydro or nuclear. Windpower can never add to our energy supply.
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