Foster J Fezziwig III

Obama's Green Obsession: More Harm Than Good?

>The upper limit for a windmill is about 59.3 per cent.

What does this have to do with "diseconomies of scale?" The percent efficiency of a power generation device don't have anything to do with economies of scale. The question is how production costs of the turbines come down as you scale up manufacture of them.

The point you seem to be missing is that the wind is free. Thus, it's not relevant that you can't capture all the energy that passes through the turbine, as long as you get a non-trivial percent. Sixty percent efficiency from a fuel that costs $0 per unit is a lot better than 90% efficiency of a resource that costs a dollar/unit. (It's sixty-six cents better, to be exact.) And that's where the cost of the turbine comes in.

The math for wind power work like this:
1) amortization of fixed cost of turbine & installation (the plant).
2) the wind (fuel) is free.
3) price of electricity sold (revenue).

if 3-(1+2) > 0, then you have some hope of a reasonable business. The peak theoretical efficiency of wind turbines is irrelevant if the actual efficiency is good enough to make money. In a good location, wind power is currently very close to being as cost effective as other fuels. As traditional fuels get more expensive over time, wind will undoubtedly become more attractive.

So I don't really see what all of the fuss is about.

Finally, your anecdote about Denmark makes absolutely no sense. If wind power is so dilute and inefficient, if it cannot possibly supply our needs, then how did Denmark so easily overshoot? Or does the next paragraph also apply to Denmark? If so, then you are suggesting that they didn't overbuild wind at all, but rather, they over-built gas-fired plants. But that doesn't make sense, either.

This article is a mess.