warmair - again the material you are trying to peddle has all been disproved. You must check activist material - including wikipedia - against other sources. The business about wind being cost competitive only applies on a per output basis. When renewables are part of a network they have to be heavily subsidised, or there has to be legislation compelling its use. I have written about this issue, as Mark Lawson, on this site.

Without both compulsion and/or subisidies there is no hope of wind power being used on a network in anything other than small amounts.

Hydroelectric with Solar and wind power pumping water back to the top of the dam problem solved no batteries required
Putting all our energy production in small areas whats wrong with solar cells spread over the top of the water on the dam ?
Combine all 3 and you have a good supply even in drier regions
I think this is the future of power not separate identies

Cobber the Beattie Labor government in Queensland ripped a quarter of a billion, yes billion dollars a year out of the government power generation sector, then demanded a "special dividend" of half a billion when he got into budgetary trouble with stupid spending. Some subsidy hey!

We had a falling down ramshackle network, with a billion required to fix the polls & wires when we got rid of him & his sidekick.

God help us if the Greens & Labor get their hands on national government in less than 3 terms of sensible government. You can see the stupidity in every interview with Palaszczuk up here.

Lets hope Tony keeps his aspiration to shut down spending on fool windmills.

Don, I can still ride my old horse, just give me a lance, & I'll get a few.

Curmudgeon
No I am not convinced by activist material and particularly that put out by the anti wind lobby. Once a wind power turbine has been built it can always undercut all forms of power that have to use or pay for fuel, simply because there are no fuel costs, wind has in fact being responsible for putting downward pressure on power prices especially during peek periods.

The issue of backup is not that much of an issue as all forms of power require back up, even coal power stations in Australia are online only 87% of the time. When a large power station breaks down whether it is fossil or nuclear it creates big problems and they don't give any warning either for an extreme example see the Fukushima disaster.

Simplistic garbage warmair.

There are thousand of broken down useless windmill eyesores in California, because the huge operating subsidies had a sunset clause built in.

The moment the subsidies stop flowing the owners walked away, abandoning the things. They could not earn the cost of maintenance, & were nothing but a liability.

There is no windmill yet developed that is worth erecting. They are a total loss & only a business proposition for the smarties, if most of the initial cost is paid by taxpayers, & large subsidies keep flowing, whether they produce power or not.

Hasbeen, are you referring to those old wind turbines from the1980s that are much smaller than the current ones and were dangerous to eagles because they used truss towers which looked like attractive nesting sites?

Technology has moved on. The economics of wind power are a lot better now than when those were built.