UK Losing Wind Gamble a Warning for World
7 hours ago Guest Blogger
By Vijay Jayaraj
On a frigid January morning, the fruit of the U.K.’s overreliance on wind energy was reaped when its contribution to the national grid plummeted to a pitiful zero. Solar output, meanwhile, was a paltry 1% of power generation.
This wasn’t just a fluke but rather a stark illustration of the dangers of building an energy system around inherently unreliable sources like wind and solar. The British government’s gamble on wind energy to meet aggressive and unattainable net-zero targets is leading toward an energy crisis of unprecedented proportions.
The Volatility of Wind Energy
Wind power’s appeal has always been its promise of environmentally clean, inexhaustible energy. But real-world experience shows the technology to be damaging to ecosystems and unreliable. Although Earth will always have wind, knowing when and how much is as impossible as the foolish pursuit of controlling the climate.
As the monthly production chart from GridWatch demonstrates, wind energy swings wildly from nearly 100% of the output to complete collapse within days or even hours. This winter, as a very cold high-pressure system settled over the U.K., wind turbines went idle just when demand for heating and electricity surged.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/03/uk-losing-wind-gamble-a-warning-for-world/
