Firstly Eric, there is plenty of evidence that wind reduces greenhouse gases, and don't come back with the arguments about back-up, because if you ask NEMMCO (the company that runs the electricity grid serving most of Australia's population), you will find that over the last 5 years while the amount of installed win energy has risen from almost nothing to more than 800MW, the amount of spinning reserve (back-up) was actually been reduced.

Secondly everyone agrees that Australians are constantly demanding more electricity and that trend is likely to continue. In that case, doesn't it make sense for as much of that power to come from zero-pollution sources as possible? Otherwise we just burn more coal, which won't exactly help our greenhouse production levels, will it?

Finally, as for arguments about intermittency, the more wind farms we have (within reason) with a good geographic spread, the more we can count on wind always contributing to the grid. When was the last time the wind didn't blow anywhere in south-east Australia?

Add the advances in wind forecasting to the mix & we will know up to 48 hours in advance what inputs we can expect.

So stop with the excuses, let's get on with making a difference, using wind power & any other energy source that can prove its worth.

eric the reason you can't see any evidence of wind farms reducing greenhouse gasses is because your head is in the sand and/or you're ignorant about electricity production and disribution . If Denmark wasn't getting 20% of its power from wind farms it would be obtaining it from a fossil or nuclear source - both of which do emit greenhouse gasses. Even our precious federal government's handpicked, pro nuclear committee's report on nuclear power in Austraia admitted that nuclear power is responsible for ongoing greenhouse gas emissions.

Why do you agree that proponents should ensure the best siting of wind power facilities if you don't believe wind works?

Let's face it, the biggest benefit ANYONE gets out of installing wind farms are the people who make and sell the darned things! As a source of electric power generation they can never meet our ever-increasing base load demands, so it is either fossil fuel or nuclear until someone figures out how to make the thermal fusion process work!
As for global warming, if it really IS happening, what is the proof that mankind generated CO2 is even a contributary cause, let alone the main culprit?
There is ample geological evidence of severe Ice Ages in the past. The last big one, 20,000 years ago, left the Northern part of the globe covered with ice up to 2 KILOMETRES thick. Well, it melted eventually, so there must have been "global warming" then, but it certainly didn't involve any great burning of "fossil fuels" or anything else by the Neandertals!
Are we wasting time & money chasing reduction of CO2 emissions which may have damn all to do with the problem of POSSIBLE global warming?

BritBasher, nobody who's bothered to learn even the basics about renewables would argue wind power alone can solve our electricity needs. Energy demand could be satisfied if serious energy conservation together with design efficiencies and ALL practical, available renewables, and gas were deployed. What's stopping these developements are the backward thinking of Government (in Aust. anyway) any the negative attitudes of people like eric and duchamp and some nimby landholders who think they're to precious to have to look at or live near a wind farm, also they're jealous because they didn't have the luck or foresight to buy land suitable for wind farms. If it wasn't for the long term waste probs of nuclear power I'd support it too.

Blair is on the right track with conserving power. We have energy saving lights (CFLs) readily available and very reasonably priced. The old incandescent globes should be taxed off the shelves or banned. And how about freeway street lights? Each of those suckers burns a couple of thousand watts. Add all the freeway lights up and you have a lot of MWs. How about turning them off after 10pm when traffic dies down. Cars all have headlights and seem to cope fine on the interstate roads.

As for putting power stations on stand-by to help out when there is no wind, where did that stupid idea come from? Power stations produce power all the time and are just regulated up or down, depending on demand. With wind turbines producing some of the power on a grid, coal fired power stations would just not be powered up as much, thus producing less emissions.

Enter the Golden Age where wind power will be complemented by solar power. R&D is proceeding where hydrogen solar power will not be dependent on fossil fuels and companies researching and developing thin-film solar technology claim that it will be competitive with grid electricity (www.redherring.com).

More emphasis should be placed on gas fired plants for the interim period (where carbon emissions are reduced by 50%) whilst better developing wind and solar technologies.

The only strategy our anal retentive leaders have is to continue polluting the planet by mining uranium, in their quest for nuclear power and their maniacal zest for profits!