@Curmudgeon: You're beginning to get it! Congratulations! You've grasped the point of the article, that wind farms certainly by themselves will be unable to replace any conventional power station, and made some response.

No I didn't get the bit about wind farms being unable to replace any conventional power station. If Denmark, the US or whoever built a conventional coal station equal in size to each and every wind farm they put up, I would have got it. But they don't, of course. And no smart grids, DC transmission and storage aren't the same thing. A quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom :

"National Grid which has responsibility for balancing the grid reported in June 2009 that the electricity distribution grid could cope with on-off wind energy without spending a lot on backup, but only by rationing electricity at peak times using a so-called "smart grid", developing increased energy storage technology and increasing interconnection with the rest of Europe."

They are currently at 27% wind without doing much. They plan to get to over 50% by 2020, by which time nuclear and coal plants will be retiring. We will see how National Grid's predictions go, shall we?

@Curmudgeon: You've now lost me on Demark.

Yeah, you're right. I am buggered if I know where I got that from. Sorry about that.

Just a couple of other points about your article:

> The problem is electricity can be transmitted only so far.

Actually no, that's not a technical problem. The entire eastern seaboard of Australia, from Cairns to Adelaide is already connected. It doesn't have the capacity, but there is no reason it couldn't.

> Denmark, which uses wind extensively, routinely exports its excess wind generated electricity ... where it is used to pump water uphill into dams.

Actually when the extra power arrives they turn off the hydro generators. Which is a good thing, because the hydro has run dry in some years.

Yes, the Hydro can run dry, and that is a problem..

One of the key arguments for wind system is that if they're coupled with pumped hydro (dams), then the problem of intermittency is reduced. The power can be stored. As the UK report makes clear, that isn't really an option in that country as the wind dies for too long a period, and there're aren't enough dams. Its out of the question in Aus.

But it makes vastly more sense in Denmark, so why that report was so desperate to disprove the exporting part is beyond me.. its what wind systems are supposed to do. They're supposed to be coupled with dams, which happen to be in other countries in Denmark's case.

Transmission distance: oh yes, the entire east coast, including Tas and SA is now linked under one operator, but that has nothing to do with transmission distance.. individual generators have a transmission distances, and wind farms are (usually) smaller and further away than conventional plants.. thus wind farms in Qland can't sub for wind farms in SA.. but you could always say that they can take over more of the conventional capacity in Qland which can then be shifted down the line to SA, but I dunno if it quite works that way..

A question for anotehr time..

It been real.. onto another story..

@Curmudgeon: thus wind farms in Qland can't sub for wind farms in SA

No that's wrong. They can with the right technology. Look up High voltage DC transmission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current They are common now. As of next year, the longest one will be 2,500 km. Their looses are around the 3% per 1,000 km, or 11% from Adelaide to Cairns, or 17% from Perth to Cairns.

When you see places like the US DOE talk about large scale dispersed systems, this is the scale they are talking about. England can't achieve it and Denmark can't achieve it because the weather correlates on the scale of cyclones - across 1000's of kilometres. But Europe as a whole can. To do it you need HVDC Transmission which, surprise, surprise, Europe is installing at increasing rates.

We don't have the technology in place, and if we wanted to use a lot of wind we would have pay to put it in. I imagine the correlation between the good wind spots near Perth or Tasi and Cairns is small. The point being paying for such technology is a substitute for paying for the fossil plants you say can't be replaced. Admittedly I didn't express this very well.

Seems to me that the ideal place in Oz for a combined wind and water system would be the west coast of Tasmania. We already have the HV transmission line in place across Bass Straight. I can't see the greens going along with that idea though. They kicked up all hell a few years ago when someone tried to dam the Franklin.

David

Today's "Australian"..."The ads give the impression that solar and wind are ready to take over from fossil fuels. Yet, even in a very optimistic scenario, the International Energy Agency estimates that by 2035, solar and energy will contribute only about 1.6 per cent of global energy."

So much for the benefit myths of "renewable energy!

Oh and if you are still not convinced, check this video out of California wind turbines.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/19/the-reality-of-wind-turbines-in-california-video/