Sure, it's a ridiculous idea to say we are going to replace all fossil fuel power with wind power, but if you live in a place with lots of wind, why is it so ridiculous to say we are going to try to find ways to use wind power when it's available?

The problem is that places with a lot of wind often have too much wind. The wind blows so hard that the windmills spin too fast and tear themselves to bits. The result is you have an entire field of windmills whose rotors have to be locked down on windy days just to keep them from destroying themselves.

Perhaps there's a happy medium in between too much wind and not enough, but that medium is so small and likely located in so few places that it may not be worth bothering with.

“That's the argument I don't get, sabiticus. Sure, it's a ridiculous idea to say we are going to replace all fossil fuel power with wind power, but if you live in a place with lots of wind, why is it so ridiculous to say we are going to try to find ways to use wind power when it's available? “

Generally speaking in places where windpower is feasible it is already being utilized.

The current push is to get it established in places that are less productive.

Let's look at this from an economic point of view. The backup for the wind turbines produces as much, if not more power, than the turbines, and costs less. Why would you relegate the backup plants to just backup, when they are more efficient and less expensive than win turbines? And backup plants are normally running, anyway, at a low level, because plants are very complex systems, and take time to bring online from standing still. If we could store the power, then that alleviates a need for the backup, but the best idea for storing that much power involves compressed air. No kidding.

So, OK, let's get past that and start deploying wind farms. Even with government subsidies, it still costs the company quite a bit to run the windfarms. More than it costs to run a gas plant, and way more than to run a coal plant. The company has to cover the costs of running those windfarms, which translates into raising rates. You should look into the process for rate changes. It's a nightmare for companies to raise the rates because of government regs put in place to keep us from over-charging. In essence, state governments have placed price controls on electricity, and we all know how great price controls work.

None of which addresses the issue of increased federal regulation of the industry. Sarbannes-Oxley, NERC-CIP (FERC), the EPA, and now we are staring down the barrel of Cap and Trade. Regulation equates directly into added costs, which the electric companies usually eat.

We don't rely on wind turbines for a lot of the same reasons nuke plants are relatively rare. They cost more per watt than gas or coal plants, and noboy wants to pay more for their electricity. Hell, it's not even a matter of “want” as it is a matter of the ripple effect of an increase of the cost of power expands out across the economy. Want to either kill manufacturing or increase the cost of goods? Raise the cost of electricity.

TANSTAAFL

“but if we can produce a third of our energy with wind power on those days, why is that such a bad idea?”

Because, as I stated above, you can't turn off the conventional power plant, regardless of how much wind is blowing. You end up with twice as much power being produced, but half of it going to waste.

When the wind stops blowing, people don't stop using electricity.

I think that's part of the problem Pres. My understanding is that the start-up times for coal and gas-fired conventional power plants can take several hours to just under an hour to reach operational capacity. You can't just “turn them on” at a whim.

An intermittent source of power (such as wind and sometimes solar) that cannot maintain a constant and steady source of power is why there are still technical issues with those alternatives. Which is also why these sources are often over-designed to meet the constant power needs (i.e. you build enough wind turbines to produce 100MW in order to supply a constant 40MW of power).

Alternatively, as Bildo stated, the power companies avoid any of those issues by just having a conventional power plant on operational stand-by.

Personally, I'm not opposed to wind or solar driven power generation. But IMO they are better left as supplements rather than as the source of primary power provision. In other words, they would have more use for the end user (to limit their external power consumption needs) and leave the power generation to the more consistent and reliable gas/coal/nuclear power plants.