Wind Power Threatens To Take Down Britain's Power Grid

In many industries, a surplus of product, within reason, is a good thing. Not so with electricity: the grid must be in balance. Too much or too little power causes blackouts. Wind power, because the winds vary so much in speed, and because wind turbines operate over a small range of those wind speeds (typically 16 to 26 mph), is not precisely predictable.
As the Times of London reports, wind power poses the real risk of shutting down the grid.

In the United States, private conversations with people who operate our grid will tell you that they deal with the challenges of wind power every day. The way we handle it is with "spinning reserve" -- generators powered by fossil fuels -- running 24/7/365 in the background. Those generators can be put online at a moment's notice.

As I wrote April 26, I completely agree with Michael Moore's assessment that wind [especially] and solar are expensive ideas that do a great deal of (net) harm. Never did I think I would agree with Moore on an issue of national policy, but he is right. The sooner we stop the wind folly, the better off we will be. 

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