Wind Power Suffers Another Setback in UK

The Cooler Heads Digest has already reported how the United Kingdom’s huge gamble on wind power will raise electricity prices and undermine reliability (here and here). Unfortunately for energy consumers in that country, it looks like it’s going to take a lot more windmills than the government thought. Experts had calculated that 50,000 wind turbines would be needed to generate 15% of Britain's electricity, to help the government to meet the EU target for a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2020.  But the Sunday Telegraph reports that it will take 100,000 turbines to meet the country’s climate goals, because wind power lobbyists in the UK grossly overestimated the benefits of wind power. The British Wind Energy Association had previously estimated that electricity from wind turbines ‘displaces’ 860 grams of carbon dioxide emissions for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.  Now it has revised that figure to 430 grams following discussions with the Advertising Standards Authority.