Looking for Reasons Why Wind Power Can Never Work? Here’s the Top 21





Master Resource
John Droz
22 March 2018

Trying to pin down the arguments of wind promoters is a bit like trying to grab a greased balloon. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it morphs into a different story and escapes your grasp. Let’s take a quick highlight review of how things have evolved with merchandising industrial wind energy.

1 – Wind energy was abandoned for most commercial and industrial applications, well over a hundred years ago. Even in the late 1800s it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs for power. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on – 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to EVER do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the archival collection of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate energy sources as horse and oxen power).


3 – Of course, that just by itself would not have been a significant incentive, so the original wind development lobbyists then made the case for a quantum leap: that by adding wind turbines to the grid we could significantly reduce CO2 from those dirty” fossil fuel electrical sources (especially coal). This argument became the basis for many states implementing a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) or Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Those undemocratic standards mandated that the state’s utilities use (or purchase) a prescribed amount of wind energy (“renewables”), by a set date.

Why was a mandate necessary? Simply because the real world reality of integrating wind energy made it a very expensive option. As such, no utility companies would normally do this on their own. They had to be forced to. For more on the cost, please keep reading.



Studies cited by the wind industry (about wind energy’s CO2 savings) are almost always computer models. As a person who has written some 100,000 lines of code, I can assure you that it’s easy to make a model that “proves” that pigs can fly. Models may be appropriate where there is no actual data. Since there are a few hundred thousand turbines in operation worldwide, there is empirical data. If CO2 is genuinely being saved, the wind industry should be able to show real data.








Lastly, it is the number of jobs per MWH produced that should be examined. This study concluded that it took 7± wind energy jobs to produce the same amount of MWH as one fossil fuel worker could. Why is that a good thing?








Second, the “externalities” for things like fossil fuels are always only the negative part. If these advocates want a true big picture calculation, then they need to also add in the benefits to us from low-cost fossil fuels based electricity. Considering that fossil fuels played a major part in our economic success and improved health and living standards over the past century, such a plus factor would be enormous.

[BTW there is some evidence that the negative externalities (e.g. about fossil fuel related asthma claims) are wildly exaggerated. What a surprise!]

13 – Although they would like to avoid it, wind developers almost always have to deal with local communities. Their universal pitch to these “host” communities is that the proposed wind project will be a financial windfall. Their plan is based on the fact that most citizens (and their representatives) are technically challenged, so they will not be aware of the realities of wind energy and their real costs. Since most of the rural communities they target are economically strapped, the developers count on the enticement of a million± dollars a year as enough to swing the deal.

However, if citizens (and their representatives) actually investigate this matter in some detail, they will find that numerous independent experts have concluded that there are multiple possible economic liabilities that are attached to these projects. To simplify this research, we have identified ten (10) different mattersthat could be a financial detriment. Interestingly, when the numbers from both side of the equation are added up (e.g. here) the NET result is almost always negative.

14 – A key grid ingredient for all of our electric energy sources is Firm Capacity. (A layman’s translation is that this is an indication of dependability: e.g. can we count on this being available next Monday at 3 PM?) Conventional sources (like nuclear) have a Firm Capacity of nearly 100%. Wind has a Firm Capacity of about 0%. Big difference!



16 – Wind marketers then hit on a new tactic: that we should use wind because it is a plentiful resource. This is a strategy based on a part truth: that we should be utilizing energy sources that are abundant, reliable, and low-cost. However, there are two major deficiencies in this thinking.

First, abundant sources that are not reliable, and that are not low-cost (i.e. wind energy), are a net detriment to our economy. Second, if they are really saying that abundance should be our primary focus, then they should be promoting nuclear power and geothermal energy. Both of these sources have something like a million times the available energy that wind does. Additionally, both of those are orders of magnitude more reliable than wind is. Also, both are lower cost when comparing the actual levelized cost of wind energy (e.g. Wind+ Gas).


  2. Nothing is sustainable, as this piece accurately explains.
  3. Wind energy is our LEAST sustainable option!



Realizing that their best defense is a good offense, some of these hucksters are now contending the inverse: that wind actually augments gas! So wind that unpredictably generates electricity 25±% of the time is “augmenting” gas, which is reliably suppling the 75±%! This immediately brings to mind the British army band playing “The World Turned Upside Down.”



  1. 20,000 square meters of destroyed vegetation,
  2. 2 million pounds of CO2,
  3. 6 million cubic meters of toxic air pollution,
  4. 29 million gallons of poisoned water,
  5. 600 million pounds of highly contaminated tailing sands, and





21 – A close cousin of the prior illegitimate contention is that “The wind is always blowing somewhere, so spreading wind projects out will result in a combination that has a dependable output.” Like essentially all the wind industry mis-infomercials do, this bald assertion has a soothing, reassuring ring. However this marketing claim is unsupported by any empirical, real-world evidence. For instance, in southeastern Australia about 20 wind projects are spread out over a single 1000± mile long grid. Yet the combined result in no way even approximates the consistent dependable performance of our primary conventional sources.

Again, our modern society is based on abundant, reliable, affordable electric power. All these specious claims for wind energy are simply part of a long line of snake oil sales spiels – intended to fool the public, and to enable politicians to justify favoring special interests by enriching various rent-seekers (which will then return the favor via campaign contributions and other reelection support).


They get away with this scam primarily for three basic reasons.


– There is no penalty for making bogus assertions or dishonest claims about their product’s benefits,” so each successive contention is more grandiose than the last.



Paraphrasing Dr. Jon Boone:





[Editor note: This post updates the most read piece in the history of MasterResource. Last updated in 2012, the post’s previous iterations were “Wind Spin: Misdirection and Fluff by a Taxpayer-enabled Industry,” which was itself an update of “Fifteen Bad Things About Wind Energy, and Three Reasons Why.”]
Master Resource

About stopthesethings



  1. Dido!!!!

  2. Reblogged this on citizenpoweralliance.

  3. kaykiser says:

    Reblogged this on Science is distorted by progressive philosophy and commented:
    Best analysis of wind power scam and problems I’ve found.

  4. Crispin says:

    I totally agree with point 18.

    Here in Australia, the Lock the Gate campaign has attacked gas fracking, whilst promoting renewables at the same time. But as John Droz points out above, the two are intrinsically linked together. The more renewables you roll out, the more gas will be needed to back it up when the wind don’t blow or the sun don’t shine. The more wind farms you build, the more likelihood there will be of a gas fracking development coming to a neighbourhood near you. And the open cycle gas plants that are needed to back wind up are, as STT have pointed out in previous posts, far less efficient than closed cycle gas plants.

    I feel that HELE, hydro and 5th Generation nuclear plus closed cycle gas plants would be a far better energy mix. And no I do not support gas fracking.

    But this is the way Victoria appears to be going. It’s nonsensical.

    • Mike Young says:

      The REALLY funny bit about Lock the Gate is what’s behind the gate.
      A farm.
      Nothing desolates an ecosystem like a farm paddock.

  5. Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:





    1. 20,000 square meters of destroyed vegetation,
    2. 2 million pounds of CO2,
    3. 6 million cubic meters of toxic air pollution,
    4. 29 million gallons of poisoned water,
    5. 600 million pounds of highly contaminated tailing sands, and

    Read on…

  6. Charles Wardrop says:

    The biggest (peacetime) present day scam of all must be be AGW itself, the “justification” of wind turbines, along with our money used for them.

    Always remember where they have been manufactured, i.e. , abroad, and how long they can operate, 10-15 years onshore, ??? how long offshore, when they might take new replacement, if politicos and public have not rumbled the scams by then.

    The question is how were people conned and/or corrupted?

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