Wind is a good energy source but it's intermittent - we can fill that gap.
Driven by falling turbine prices and the rush to take advantage of production tax credits (which were set to expire but were renewed by Congress in early January), wind energy was the fastest growing source of new electricity generation in the United States in 2012.
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But the UK government is heavily dependent on wind energy more than any other renewable source of power, to provide 15% of its green energy by 2020.
We're not going to be able to ramp up solar and wind to suddenly replace every other energy source anytime soon, and the economy still needs to grow.
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For many of these states, offshore wind is the most abundant indigenous energy source and the only commercial option for renewable power generation, especially in southern states where land-based resources become scarcer with decreasing latitude.
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In the past, all technologies were subsidised equally, so most investment went into onshore wind, the cheapest source of renewable energy.
Wind is the fastest-growing renewable energy source for electricity generation in the U.S., and DOE estimates that 20 percent of the energy consumed in the U.S. could come from wind power by 2030.
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According to Pacific Hydro, wind is the world's fastest growing energy source, with installed capacity over the five years from 1998-200 growing at an average 32 percent a year.
Wind and solar as a source of renewable energy is a goal that most electric-generating companies, including General Electric (GE), Duke Energy (DUK), and Northwestern Energy (NEW), are hotly pursuing.
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Tidal turbines can be installed closer to shore than wave energy equipment, and thanks to the regularity of the tides, tidal power offers a more stable renewable energy source than, say, intermittent wind or solar.
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Wind is certainly not a competitive free market source of energy, or a charity we can continue to afford.
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Wind turbines that are a source of clean, green energy are also having an unforeseen impact on bats and birds.
In China, wind energy has surpassed nuclear power to become the third largest energy source in the country.
Nor does the wind blow (a likely source of some of their bought in energy) all of the time.
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Those rules, which are expected to be finalized in mid-2012, constitute another preferential subsidy for wind energy that will raise electricity prices for everyone, whether they rely upon that source or not.
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And skeptics are also saying that wind energy is an intermittent fuel that must always be backed up by a power source that can begin generating when the wind dies down, making it expensive to operate.
Nukes may not be quite as clean as wind, solar or geothermal, but they provide a carbon-free and domestic source of energy that produces lots of jobs.
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Costs for coal are highly dependent on the cost of gasoline, and the costs for wind are highly dependent on material costs like steel and concrete as wind requires about 10 times the amount of steel, concrete and copper per kWhr than any other energy source.
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It is also an "enabler" for renewable energy, providing a source of electricity that can step in to fill the gap when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining.
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This may be a very big bird, indeed, and perhaps another source of dense energy for the next century, as opposed to the dinosaurs of distributed solar and wind.
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