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wind farms ARE propaganda
Not a single conventional power station can be taken off line - they are needed for when the wind doesn't blow.
They are a valid part of the mix and using some of the older power stations only when needed will extend their working life - I guess short term intermittency is a bigger issue than a week under a big high pressure due to the time and inefficiencies in say firing up a coal station?
Periods of down time due to the intermittent nature of wind farms will be the least in Scotland and providing the balance of wind power is not excessive, it's rare that all potential areas are too clam at the same time, plus increased use of pump storage in hydro schemes has the potential to provide a means to effectively store wind power output to boost capacity at peak times or times where wind production falls.
However the UK governments idea of a wind farm every half mile around the Coast is just bonkers. So is the rules governing grid connections in this country which necessitate massive wind farms in the first place for them to have a sufficient commercial return to cover the connection costs.
There are places suited for wind farms and there are places that are definately not. The balance in such renewables should be in smaller wind farms and community level facilities, not massive 200+ turbine facilities which over dominate the land. We need some fundamental changes in regulatory and government attitude though and the real problem is always going to be that Grid Electricity is a good taxable commodity.
Tidal power is surely the most useful source in terms of potential because its regular, and available capacity at a given time can be reasonably well calculated.
Edited 2 times. Last edit at 14.53hrs Tue 29 Jan 08 by alan.