US Market
The decarbonisation of energy systems depends largely on the embrace of wind and solar energy.
Fortunately, the costs of solar power are falling fast and, combined with the low-cost batteries that are now available, solar has become a competitive and reliable energy source in sunny locations. But while wind power provides more energy than solar, its usage is expanding more slowly, owing partly to opposition from politicians and local communities.
US President Donald Trump summed up the politicians’ case against wind in 2020: “It’s extremely expensive. Kills all the birds. It’s very intermittent.” But, while none of these assertions is entirely unfounded, all are vastly overstated
On cost, the International Energy Agency reports that, in areas with steady strong onshore winds, wind farms offer the lowest levelised costs of electricity generation, lower than even fossil fuels. And while wind power is intermittent, it is most consistent in winter, making it a useful complement to solar, which is strongest in summer.
As for the birds, many might well die as a result of collisions with wind-turbine blades, an estimated 250,000 per year in the United States. But one major research project found that seabirds actively avoid offshore turbines: in two years of monitoring an offshore wind farm adjacent to Trump’s golf course in Scotland, not a single bird collided with a rotor blade.