<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Recent study says 65% of total electricity production in<br>Germany could be done with wind power -- in theory.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>I don't believe that number, current wind farms produce less than 30% of the power they were supposed to and their output is very irregular. See: <br><div><br></div><div><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/">http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/</a></div><div><br></div><div>And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms become common that 30% figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will bitch about disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly and making noise. </div><div><br></div><div>As for solar cells, they use indium and tellurium and there is not enough in the earth's crust to make enough cells to make a serious dent in the problem. Maybe substitutions will be found but they wouldn't be a solution to global warming; solar cells are black and only about 20% efficient, so 80% of the light that would otherwise be reflected back into space is converted directly into heat. And I just can't see powering a steel making blast furnace with solar cells. The only technology that is ready today to take over from fossil fuels is nuclear fission, moonbeams just aren't going to work.</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark </div><div><br></div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br></body></html>