I am in two minds about these wind farm thingies.The same argument can be put for solar Photo voltaic panels too.
On one hand, if you take them at their face value; they are fairly efficient, they don't produce pollution, they are not that ugly, especially compared to huge cooling towers and plumes of smoke. They don't smell, and birds do not fly into them and die.
Solar PV, are not efficient enough as yet. Not at UK latitudes anyway. I don't care what the 'greenies' say. The manufacture of PV panels uses more power than the panels will produce in their usable life time (current state of the art). Unless you need to power a satellite, which can be in sunlight 24/7 (nearly) if in the correct orbit. In the UK, however, that's not happening.
On the other hand; if you take the energy used to manufacture wind farms, energy wise, they almost certainly will not 'pay' for themselves Unless they last for years without failure. Which they won't. Failutes will be commmon Manufacturing them does cause pollution.Repairing them does too. In the wrong places, they are pig ugly. And because they have movement, they stand out. You can get used to a big ugly building, they stay put. But something as dynamic as a wind farm?
Really, wind farms are a stop gap. Not a panacea for profligate energy usage. And without some form of energy storage, barley any use as a local source. Think about it, the wind is howling around the house. It's 03:00. You are in bed, asleep, in your gas fired centrally heated home. The only electricity being consumed is by the standby functions on the TV etc..( but as a good 'greeny' you have turned them off). Unless you have electric storage heaters, you are getting nothing from these things. Ok, other businesses could be using the total output from them, all well and good. But then what happens on a flat calm?
Batteries are not practical as energy storage. The state of the art is improving, but is still not good enough for a really practical car, let alone a house. Of course, you can get around that with money. Huge batteries are available. Purchase a used SSK, remove batteries and use. However, the batteries don't have a long use life, need regular, highly skilled (If not skilled, just remove the 's') maintenance. And are incredibly none green to make.
So what we really need is a constant, reliable, power supply. Well, that isn't happening until fusion power comes on line.
Ok, if you want to run your Nintendo, Playstation, what have you, you will have to go nuclear. Yep, Nuclear. For those that do not understand nuclear power, and have a computer with intertubes, use it to do a bit of research. Don't be thick and believe what others tell you, make your own mind up. There is NO excuse for ignorance. Here is a pointer- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor . Not perhaps the answer, but better than wind farms. Or is it?
