[Animats]

And we got it. Wind power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Solar power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Battery storage works, is starting to be cost effective, and scales well. Fracking works, too, until that level of reserves runs out.

Energy has moved down the priority list of problems.

[That-one-thing]

No, now I have trouble finding English sources and I need to go in a while.

But no wind power does not work in large scale in a electric system. The problem is that you need to have a lot of extra power and power electronics to stabilize the effect of wind power. It disturbs the frequency of the electricity in the network and you have to balance it with other sources you have complete control over to keep the power stable.

When the Swedish energy department made a study they found that we can't have more than 10 TWh of wind power (7%)[0]. There is one study from one group that says that we can have up to 30 TWh (21%)[2], but if we are realistic it's probably in the middle. This is things my professors in wind power told us, and they really like wind power.

Sorry the sources are in Swedish, but I really advice you to look into the subject before calming that it's all perfect.

[0] http://www.svk.se/siteassets/om-oss/rapporter/20130313-integ...

[1]http://fof.se/tidning/2012/7/tal-elnatet-mer-vindkraft Lennart Söders forskargrupp.

[ZeroGravitas]

Sweden has had more than 7% wind for a few years now, so we can safely say it's higher than 7%.

There's actually a single giant windfarm due for completion in 2020 that on its own will provide more than 8%.

There are some reasons to think solar and wind have physical limits and can't provide 100% on their own (or even together) economically just as nuclear on its own doesn't really make economic sense, but there's a long history of groups predicting false limits based on strange assumptions.

[That-one-thing]

You are correct in that the first estimate my the energy department was wrong. But the idea that it is all solved and that we can just build lots of it without having to worry is not a good strategy for a society in my opinion. Yes sometimes they sometimes make predictions that are wrong, but I still think that we should listen mostly to scientific prediction than anything else.

Yes and that the UK peaked at 28% is irrelevant ( EDIT: I used to harsh wording, yes it's a bit relevant but there are still problems with applying one solution to another place ) because they have different system with different possibilities. You can't implement the same systems everywhere since they have different conditions.

Maybe we can have almost exclusively power by wind in the future. But until then I prefer to listen to scientists and hear what they have to say.

[tonyedgecombe]

Yet the UK peaked at 27% earlier this year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/07/uk-sets-new-r...