If you’ve followed Daren Bakst’s work on the problems associated with wind power, you already know what a Bloomberb Businessweek editorial highlights this week:
German energy prices have begun careening in the strangest ways. Sunny, gusty days generate so much alternative energy that utilities pay industrial customers to take it away. Cloudy, calm weather creates shortages that can send wholesale prices as high as $220 a megawatt hour. Zigzagging energy prices aren’t just a short-term annoyance. They distort budgets and spending priorities, forcing utilities to spend billions on fossil-fuel plants that are used only part-time to ensure steady power when wind and solar are in short supply.
The magazine’s answer to the problem is to have the federal government spend more money — because we have so much extra taxpayer money to spend, of course — on research projects that ought to be left to the private sector. But at least these guys recognize that wind power is not a viable, cost-effective option today.
