Yes, Our Increasing Reliance on Intermittent Wind Power Really Is a Problem
MINOT, N.D. — The problem with debating energy policy in modern America is that so much of the discourse is driven by reporters, who have been indoctrinated in the fossil-fuels-are-evil narrative since they were watching “Captain Planet” on Saturday mornings, and pugnacious pundits who aren’t bright enough to actually be for anything but instead must wait to see what the other side says so they can know what they are against.
Our national conversation about energy — as millions and millions of Americans struggle with rolling blackouts that, in some cases, aren’t rolling much — is focused on a stupidly binary debate.
Are fossil fuels to blame for the blackouts plaguing the middle part of America? Or is it renewables?
Many, including this correspondent, have been saying for years that the government-incented push toward energy sources such as wind has made our power grids less resilient. We correctly see the blackouts as an unhappy vindication of our arguments.
The rebuttal, often coming from the aforementioned pundits and Captain Planet fans, is that intermittent wind energy is only a part of the problem.