Intermittent but reliable

Peter Sinclair’s debunkings of Monckton in Climate Denial Crock of the Week series were posted on Hot Topic recently.  Here he is in one of a new series, Renewable Energy Solution of the Month, intended to augment, not replace, Climate Denial Crock. Wind energy has featured frequently in Hot Topic posts, and Sinclair corrects some of the misconceptions which still surround it.

3 thoughts on “Intermittent but reliable”

  1. Thanks – I really enjoyed this one, and it proved timely as a reference re the viability of alternative technologies in a discussion that was being had in another forum.

    Sinclair's production standards are really gaining, and I voted for him (there's a link on the YouTube page) to have a chance to get a (well-deserved) bit of cash support.

  2. Yep, nicely done.

    Pete makes the valid point that all electricity generation is intermittent. I prefer to think of wind as "variable".

    One point he failed to make (as I recall at least) is that the more wind available on the system the less of a problem the variability becomes. With a couple of proviso's:
    1. The wind farms must be spread around the country
    2. The grid needs to be robust

    This is well demonstrated by Spain's grid operator with their real time monitoring of wind power entering the grid.

    If you fish around on the site they also monitor demand and most of the time it is the demand that changes more rapidly than the wind.

  3. Yep, nicely done.

    Pete makes the valid point that all electricity generation is intermittent. I prefer to think of wind as "variable".

    One point he failed to make (as I recall at least) is that the more wind available on the system the less of a problem the variability becomes. With a couple of proviso's:
    1. The wind farms must be spread around the country
    2. The grid needs to be robust

    This is well demonstrated by Spain's grid operator with their real time monitoring of wind power entering the grid.

    If you fish around on the site they also monitor demand and most of the time it is the demand that changes more rapidly than the wind.

Leave a Reply