But, like, wow, man, I mean, the wind's supposed to be FREE, you dig?

power to the people

Europe’s wind energy plan runs into dead calm

[UK] Residents receiving their energy bills were shocked to see a steep increase in the price of electricity. … Costs were double what they had been in previous months and more than four times higher than during the same period in 2020. But how could that be? The country has been investing heavily in renewable energy to meet its obligations under the climate deal and many new wind-power stations had come online, allowing them to idle many fossil fuel plants. Then the disappointing news arrived. Energy was at a premium because their renewable sources were slumping significantly. So what went wrong? It’s fairly simple. The winds on the North Sea (where most of the wind plants are) had simply stopped blowing. (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)

Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing.

The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.

Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.

This won’t be a problem in the U.S., of course, because once we’ve destroyed our fossil fuel infrastructure the wicked utilities won’t be able to turn to them to generate electricity. Our utility bills will drop to zero, as will the temperature in our homes.