Too negative

I am no believer in man made global warming, but I can see some use for so called renewables.  I started to think a bit about this last night after listening to a recent Space Show broadcast which covered the topic of space solar power.  That topic can segue into this one, which is the UK's experience with windpower.  It is too expensive, some say.

That might be true, but to make all too sweeping statement made here.

Yet, the reality is that unless there’s a miraculous improvement in our technology, wind is NEVER going to shoulder a significant part of the energy burden in this country no matter how much money we waste on it.

What makes this objectionable is that the technology may be ok, but the way it is being used is not.  It makes little sense, in my opinion, to use wind to power the grid.  But wind can power other things for which it is better suited.  Wind is not a good match for the grid because the wind doesn't always blow when you need it to.  But manufacturing, or any other process, can be made to adjust itself, or be tailored to the availability of an energy source.  Its a matter of getting a match to the need.  Not to try to force a round peg into a square hole.  That's the problem here, not the technology of wind power itself;  which is a round peg, and the grid, which is a square hole.  Trying to make this work is the problem, not the technology itself.

I spent time a few years ago studying maps of "stranded" wind energy.  If the energy is stranded, it is because it is a long way from population centers.  The trick would be to get the energy into a usable form which can be transported over distances to where the people are.  A solution can be found to that problem, I would think.   Just manufacture a product on site from an energy source- such as wind- into methanol, or ammonia, and then transport it to where it can be converted back into usable energy.

Update:

Note:  In order to give you a heads up, I am now going to colorize pdf file links as green.

Update:

This is an interesting link I got form the above pdf link ( in green "stranded") about ammonia.