Wind turbines. Contributed PhotoWindmills may sound like a great way to meet the United States’ energy needs. After all, the wind is free, and windmills don’t produce “greenhouse gases.”
But when you start looking at the fine print, you realize that while the wind may be free, large-scale wind power projects have huge costs that can make them highly impractical.
Over in Britain, there is talk of spending the equivalent of $163 billion on wind energy projects, in part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But besides that massive price tag, there is another problem with Britain’s wind energy plan: Wind is unpredictable. When there is little or no wind blowing, you need some kind of backup energy or there will be power disruptions.
So, Britain is looking at shelling out an additional $16 billion to build more than a dozen power plants that run on natural gas. Those plants would provide backup energy when the wind isn’t blowing.