Clean Technica l Zachary Shahan 16 June, 2011
Great discussion of analysis by Paul Gipe of Wind Works on wind versus nuclear and the baseload fallacy, with specific comparisons of nuclear unreliability at Fukushima even before the accident, and ever increasing success with reliable energy generation from wind power, especially in Germany and Spain.
There's a reason Germany is willing to switch to renewable energy from nuclear- it works. And, despite the usual criticisms from the nuclear industry about reliability the author explains why wind works in Europe, and how it is only at the beginning of the curve toward its true potential.
A lot of wind critics assert that wind power isn’t reliable. The wind power video above, however, does a great job of pointing out the differences between wind power variability and variability of traditional power sources, among other things. Paul Gipe of Wind-Works also recently got into this topic, in more detail, as compared to nuclear power:
Critics of wind energy often charge that wind energy is too “unreliable” to generate a large portion of a nation’s electricity and suggest that base load needs “reliable” sources of generation such as nuclear power.
While wind is a “variable” resource, that is, the wind doesn’t always blow and when it does it doesn’t always blow at the same strength, wind is far more reliable than the critics charge. In fact, wind is fairly predictable on long time horizons, especially from one year to the next.
In contrast, nuclear power is “reliable” until it isn’t as the units at the Fukushima nuclear power plant so dramatically demonstrate.
