By OLIVIA MCPHERSON-SMITH | REAL CLEAR WIRE
China is the world’s largest generator of wind power and a team of researchers at the heart of the global wind industry has just discovered an inconvenient truth: weather-dependent sources of electricity are a bad bet when the climate is changing.
In an article published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, the Beijing and Shenzhen-based researchers find that around 20% of the globe’s wind turbines are located in areas that will become increasingly susceptible to “wind droughts” due to changing climactic conditions. As the name implies, wind droughts are sustained periods of uncharacteristically low gusts that render wind turbines useless. Even with aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers predict that these acute snaps of atmospheric stillness will become both more frequent and longer in a global geographic belt that stretches north of Houston to just south of Anchorage.
These findings will come as little surprise to utility operators across Western Europe, who are also located within the latitudinal wind lacuna. Germany, which has the largest wind fleet in Europe, was blighted by calm skies in March of this year. Electricity prices soared 48% higherrelative to the preceding March and coal and natural gas plants carried the burden in Europe’s largest economy.
Inept during periods of calm, wind power also struggles in wild weather. The goldilocks requirements of wind were notably evident in Texas, which has the largest wind build-out of any state, during Winter Storm Uri of 2021. Though the storm drove down electricity generation across the board, nuclear, natural gas, and coal proved to be the most resilientsources of electricity during the assault on the Lone Star state’s grid.
The oscillation between erratic booms and busts of renewable electricity generation chips away at the wind industry’s key selling point of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Coal plants may pick up the slack during wind downturns, but they otherwise operate below their designed capacity due to an influx of federally subsidized renewables into the grid. Yet, operating a coal plant below capacity is inefficient and typically results in higher greenhouse gas emissions on a per megawatt hour basis. The federally induced proliferation of wind turbines thus lock the grid into a twist: dispatchable power is a necessary stopgap for increasingly intermittent wind generation, but a surge in wind generation increases the relative emissions of approximately 20% of America’s dispatchable electricity generation, which leads to progressive calls for a build-out of more wind power that will require a stopgap.
The mounting academic and empirical warning signs of wind power’s shortcoming are lost on the global climate lobby, which continues to recycle decades-old talking points. Just last week, the former president of the Socialist International turned United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that the future must be powered by renewables, in part, because there are “no embargoes on wind.” Given the exacerbation of conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan during Guterres’ term as Secretary General, it remains to be seen how the Secretary General will negotiate the end of a wind drought with the skies.
For Guterres and his comrades, recent research on wind droughts should provide another data point that illustrates how today’s renewable technology will fail to propel the world’s economy. Neither citizens nor the environment are well served by constructing rhetorical Potemkin villages, where en vogue technologies are lauded and their drawbacks ignored. Realism around the strengths and weaknesses of various energy technologies is the only sustainable path forward.
Oliver McPherson-Smith, PhD served as the inaugural Executive Director of the National Energy Dominance Council in the second Trump Administration.
There is nothing so frustrating as a blind man who will not see. That’s you, Progressives!
The author omits any mention of the toxic metals emitted by the combustion of coal, which are proven, serious hazards to human health. Mercury, lead, and trace amounts of radioactive uranium are released by coal combustion- as these metals are found as impurities within the coal. Almost all fish now contains mercury. And, a typical coal fired power plant emits more radiation that a nuclear power plant due to the above reasons.
Wind, when combined with proven, safe, reliable hydro-electric power is the future, along with reasonable investments in PV solar, in climates where there is a proven cost benefit.
If Alaska had built Susistna years ago we’d be much better off- not paying close to 35 cents per kWh is GVEA rate payers are forced to do.
Windmills kill birds of prey and disorient ocean life. Production of windmill parts requires slave labor and child labor in third-world countries, countries that don’t have the environmental and occupational protections that we have. In 2013, the National Library of Medicine published the adverse health effects that windmills cause: ‘https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3653647/.
I’ll pass. Thank you.
Hydro isn’t viewed as clean green renewable energy by most of the clean green renewable energy folks; Susitna certainly isn’t. As previously discussed Susitna has its own issues as to how exactly it wouldn’t fit into the Alaskan railbelt due to its lack of ability to provide power when needed and demanded most in Alaska.
We did a study on Susitna if I remember.
I think the ecologist killed it.
Are you talking about the toxins that are easily scrubbed from the coal power plant emissions, and have been scrubbed from those emissions for decades? Those toxins?
Who wudda known?
There will always be wind somewhere, I don’t believe any new coal plants will be built because the wind moves around. Just ask Texans, or Iowans where wind turbines and solar panels are sprouting like weeds
Yeah, Frank. Texans fondly remember the massive contributions, aka failures of wind and solar during the blackouts of 2021. Lots of burst pipes when the blades were frozen and solar was inop in the dark. Repairs went on for years afterwards. Plumbers got rich. But your analogy is more correct than you think. Sometimes things that sprout like weed are truly weeds. Cheers –
Haven’t been to Texas lately have you frank, most of the windmills there barely turn. You should see the piles of the ones hidden away that have been taken down.
I own a lot of land in West Texas. The windmills work just fine. They even work up in the Interior, where we have much colder weather than Texas.
It appears that MRAK readers would rather live in an overheated world while choking to death on hydrocarbon combustion fumes, simply to keep their oil-fueled PFDs rolling in.
Manley is right. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Sorry WTD, you want “clean energy” but in order to achieve your utopia, how much oil and gas as well as rare earth metals do you have to extract to build all the parts of your precious wind turbines?
So in essence you prefer to pillage Mother Earth to save her….how dishonest is that, while accusing everyone else of greed?
What do you have against trees? They use CO2 and convert it to oxygen, yet in order to fulfill your “wind energy dreams” how many do you have to clear cut to make room for all those turbines? And the whole thing isn’t a once and done proposition either, as those turbines last only a few years and then have to be replace with….you guessed it more turbines made with carbon fiber and plastic parts made from OIL!
In my opinion wind turbines are a great waste of money, they are ugly and kill to many birds for only unreliable energy production.
Instead why not focus on geothermal, hydro and continue to improve efficiency and cleaner emissions from oil and gas.
I prefer to ask the former employees of Alcoa who lost their jobs at the foundry because they could no longer get reliable power.
Frank, the wind farms in Texas, are a game. Put up pinwheels to gain th water right to the land they sit on. Boone Pickens made serious money on that one
Turns out that all the green energy is really green, it’s also not affordable, and it’s certainly not reliable. ‘https://heartland.org/opinion/affordable-reliable-and-clean-an-objective-scorecard-to-assess-competing-energy-sources/’
Nice of you to take the position of OPEC, Steve. Much better to buy oil that enriches the nations that don’t share our values, eh?
Fact: The cheapest, most reliable, most affordable energy in Alaska comes from hydroelectric. See, with hydroelectric you don’t have to pay the gravity bill.
So, where are the hydroelectric power plants?
And, why are leftists, such as yourself, always fighting against them?
Gas and oil are kings in the energy sector and always will be.
Hydroelectric, wind and solar all need improvement, but they are the future of alternative energy.
Akwhitty, SB-21 killed Susitna when we lost billions in revenue. We’d made great progress on the FERC permitting and were well on our way to having clean, affordable, renewable energy From Susitna Hydroelectric.
Now, GVEA ratepayers are paying 35 cents per kWh. Sucks to be them.
The experiment in Kodiak is still going but hydro is much better. In Juneau at Salmon Creek for example the generator is very small. The most space is taken up by the backup diesel generators that just sit idle.
Juneau is blessed to have power supplied by 6 different hydro sources, soon to become 7. Three of these were built over a hundred years ago. Pretty sure the windmills won’t enjoy that sort of longevity or ROI. Hydro of various types and geothermal are the top winners in my book. Windmills are at the bottom.
maybe this guy discovered an inconvenient truth. Apparently he served as the inaugural Executive Director of the National Energy Dominance Council in the second Trump Administration for about 3 months. There are a lot of numbers to crunch on the issue of wind power. I figured Kodiak Electric did some. When I am in Kodiak I see lots of birds and don”t hear anyone saying lets tear the windmills down and burn more diesel.
Really???? I hear it all the time. Nobody likes the windmills. We are just supposed to suck it up and get used to the ugly things because it’s good for the environment, quote unquote.
You know we use diesel to heat our homes right ? You know also that all the ships that bring our food, clothes, materials etc. are diesel right? The trucks that transport our goods to market are diesel. The trains are diesel. A lot of power plants in Alaska are diesel fired. City buses are diesel. School buses are diesel. All of our construction equipment is diesel. Yeah okay looney toons let’s stop burning big bad oil and see how may days society exists…I’ll guess 6…maybe before bedlam.
nice rant! In 2024 KEA had their first rate increase in 30 years. Wind was around for 15 of that. Do you really think that could of happened if diesel was supplying 15% of your power? I have burned plenty of diesel in my life. I just think renewables make sense in certain environments. Between Pillar Mountain and Terror Lake Kodiak has maintained some of the lowest electric rates in the state.
We have three wind turbines in Quinhagak. They were financed mostly by the federal government through the Denali Commission. They have performed well for just over a decade.
What we’re not seeing is AVEC actually investing in any turbines, all by themselves. AVEC has a monthly mini co-op magazine, which one could expect would periodically print the pertinent statistics related to performance, cost efficiency and run time.
Naw, they keep that too themselves. Which makes me wonder why a green promoting Co-op isn’t flying the flag of data statistics…Loud and proud 🤔
Hydro and nuclear are both better than wind by far
Coal is better.
Natural gas is better.
Wood fired steam engines are an improvement over wind.
Everything so far known to man is an improvement over wind.
The wind subsidy scam, a narrative which the public at large would recognize if they read Don Quixote, is just that.
There is nowhere near enough mega storage to store power for each system and release it consistently to not cause catastrophic strains on reliable energy generation.
The oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear generators have to be kept running due to this issue.
The parts the windmills themselves are built from have short lifespans and not biodegradable. Major landfill issues. The parts are made in China, our wealth is sent overseas to purchase these products, instead of creating industry and employment here at home.
Ultimately there is a need to focus on researching sources like hydrogen for long term conversion. Subsidizing wind and solar schemes in their current primitive and non economically functional forms is a massive waste of wealth.
The cogent argument is not if sourcing reliable and economical energy for the future is not critical. But to pretend wind and solar power should be forced for utility companies to use and subsidize this nonesense is a massive national security threat.