Energy storage

Re “Wind turbines” (Your Views, Feb. 12): Barry Syke has to understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yes, wind turbines will be able to power 600,000 homes cleanly when they operate. But reliable is not part of their description. Nowhere in any news releases do I see the words “energy storage” or “base load,” which is the proper term for reliable.

Germany is the “green” world leader in solar and wind technology and the dismantling of their nuclear power stations. On good days their solar and wind can disrupt their grid — producing more than can be consumed. I read recently that California solar is trending there as well.

However, not long ago Europe experienced a rather extended weather event where the wind didn’t blow enough. Germany’s answer was to restart its “brown” coal power stations — the dirtiest form of fossil energy production.

There exists now no plan in any country to store “green” energy or the infrastructure to move this energy from the usually remote source areas to the users who require the energy.

And there are no plans to construct/ maintain/staff power stations that will be needed to compensate for nature’s weather whims — which would include hurricanes, where turbines would be feathered to avoid damaging the blades and fires where transmission lines could fail.

The issue of mining the raw materials to produce these new energy producers should be the subject of other opinion pieces as well as the “elephants in the room” — nuclear and hydro.

James Hurst, Williamsburg