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hether it is a calm day or if there are gentle breezes, turbines generate nothing. During high winds, they must be turned off to prevent damage.

No matter how it is configured, a wind farm delivers only an average of one-third of installed capacity.

The second big problem is that wind power is generated only when the wind blows, not when consumers need. The wind power supply profile seldom matches consumer demand and the wind can start and stop suddenly, creating network instability.

When you want it, you cannot get it. When you get it, you do not need it.

This unreliability means that wind power always needs a backup supply, ready to swing into production at short notice. In Australia, this usually means “spinning reserve” — a gas or coal plant fired up and idling along, ready to deliver full power at short notice. This wastes fuel, labor, land and capital. Wind power also has low energy density — a large area of land must be peppered by turbines and networked by roads and transmission lines to collect significant energy, even when the wind blows.

The resources needed to manufacture, transport, erect and maintain the windmills and transmission lines, construct the
access roads, build and operate the backup generators, makes wind a very costly power option — so costly it must be subsidized and forced onto consumers, causing soaring electricity bills.

Even if reducing carbon dioxide were a sensible aim (which it is not) gas alone would be a far cheaper way to do this.

 Wind power is not sensible for base-load power; it wastes community resources and does not benefit the climate or the environment. It should not receive special legislated privileges.

Viv Forbes,
Queensland, Australia