One of the false claims made by “wind energy” advocates is that greater use of wind energy would reduce US dependence on oil, including oil imports. In fact, adding more wind turbines will have no significant impact on US oil consumption. Unfortunately, many well-meaning people (including reporters) and some regulators and political leaders have accepted – and repeated -- the wind advocates’ false claims about reductions in oil use. This brief paper explains why the reduced oil use claim is false.

This paper provides an assessment of wind power effects on technical and economic performance of today’s electric power systems. While small penetration of wind power is unlikely to cause any qualitative changes, significant percent of wind-generated power will require major rethinking of generation dispatch and automatic generation control, in particular. We summarize technical risks, as well as the economic implications on total cost of providing power to customers. The discussion is presented for both traditional fully regulated utilities and for the portions of the electric power interconnection which are undergoing restructuring. The paper suggests that the ultimate benefit of wind power to the customers will depend to a large extent on how well are today’s operating practices adjusted to make the most out of the available resources, including the intermittent wind power. Moreover, we suggest that an analysis could be done to determine the amount of wind power for a given system beyond which benefits are difficult to capture because of the necessary additional infrastructure cost.

State Wind Activities

The U.S. map below [available via provided link] summarizes Wind Powering America's State activities, which include validated wind maps, anemometer loan programs, small wind guides, legislative briefings, and wind working groups. Click on a state to read more state-specific news. You can also use the drop down list to get to state Web pages.

Editor's Note:The US DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE) and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are funding (at taxpayer expense) "wind working groups" in many states. While not all "wind working groups" identify their members, many of those that do appear to be comprised of wind 'advocates' only. You can find out more about these "wind working groups" by visiting the DOE site via the link below.

This paper:
• Lists key reasons why political leaders and regulators are facing problems when attempting to deal with wind energy.
• Provides more information on the effort in Kansas to evaluate wind energy.
• Identifies facts about wind energy that are often not taken into account by political leaders and regulators.
• Comments on the efforts in Kansas to promote greater use of wind energy.
• Outlines lessons for all government officials that can be learned from the efforts in Kansas.

Editor's Note Presented on October 20th during the 2006 Electric Market Forecasting Conference sponsored by EPIS, Inc. this addresses, in part, the issue of whether emissions are reduced with the addition of industrial wind energy. This is a large pdf file (8.55MB) and is available via the weblink below.

This is a comprehensive, well documented and thoughtful presentation on a wide range of industrial wind issues by Dan Boone, Consulting Conservation Biologist, at the public meeting held by Save Our Allegheny Ridges in Bedford, PA on September 18, 2006

This report provides an assessment of the status of renewable energy resource information and products for the United States. This work was completed for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) under Contract No. DE-AC3699-GO10337.

This is the pdf version with charts of Sen. Inhofe's speech. The full text version of the speech is available via the link below.

All actions and statements by Sierra Club entities with regard to energy policy and facilities shall be in furtherance of and consistent with this policy. Additional guidance can be found in the Energy and Economics Policy, the Energy Facility Siting Policy, and the One-Club Policy, as well as in various energy guidelines and advisories. This policy takes precedence over any earlier energy policies, guidelines, advisories or positions. It does not change jurisdictions for establishing positions as set forth in the Policy on Policies.

This report focuses on the effects of wind farms on air defense and missile warning radars and the resulting potential impact on military readiness. Its scope is limited to these specific subjects and is based on the current level of understanding regarding interactions between such defense systems and state-of-the-art wind turbines.........
The results from those flight trials documented that state-of-the-art utility-class wind turbines can have a significant impact on the operational capabilities of military air defense radar systems. The results demonstrated that the large radar cross section of a wind turbine combined with the Doppler frequency shift produced by its rotating blades can impact the ability of a radar to discriminate the wind turbine from an aircraft. Those tests also demonstrated that the wind farms have the potential to degrade target tracking capabilities as a result of shadowing and clutter effects.