Further to the fine comment above, I suggest the EWPC article "Is Gore's Revolutionary Leadership Challenge Feasible? (please hit the link )," whose summary reads: "Al Gore leadership challenge is based on leading expert advice. EWPC is the first holistic step ready to be implemented in an Energy Policy Act that satifies the non-trivial power system requirements laid out by the leading experts power industry insiders the late Fred C. Schweppe and Jack Casazza."

One thing that needs to become clear is that the fossil fuel "fueled" society system needs to be restructured out by opening the power industry to competition. Maybe 10 years could become 12 or 15 years transition, the whole point about EWPC is that it has a bridging function. It does that by letting generation competition work its way out, by having fossil fuels taxed in accordance with rules at the WTO. All those like Mark Gabriel and you that feel that clean power will not make a dent should favor such free competition under in a power business without price controls.

Unlike the financial industry and deregulation, which are prone to systemic risks, EWPC has a controlled transportation market that is associated with short run and long run systemic risks. Please take a look at the article "Rethinking Electricity Restructuring as EWPC (the link is http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2007/10/... )."Long run systemic risk is known in the power industry system adequacy.

The article posted by Mark Gabriel is interesting, but actually deeply flawed in several respects related to wind power. Specifically:

1) First, the wind energy industry does not view wind power as a baseload generating resource, it is an energy resource, not a capacity resource. So it is important to NOT characterize an attempt to replace coal or any other baseload generating technology with wind power, it is not anything the wind industry is promoting now or in the past at all.

2) The characterization of the February 26th ERCOT event, unfortunately, was based on reports in the popular press -- which were incorrectly reported by ERCOT itself initially The decline in wind power output was one of at least four factors in that event, and by no means the major factor. Readers are encouraged to review the final ERCOT report on that event in order to base any conclusions from it -- you will find that wind energy output was, in fact, correctly predicted within a few percent, by the wind forecasting system that ERCOT had in a test mode and had not yet implemented (which they have quickly started to remedy). See here for more information: http://www.awea.org/newsroom/pdf/AWEA_Viewpoint_on...

3) The article fails to address some of the advantages of wind power becoming a major generation technology that were outlined in the recent U.S. DOE "20% Wind Energy by 2030" report ( www.20percentwind.org ). This report goes to great lengths to provide information on how wind energy can be increased dramatically as an energy resource, to decrease the need for coal plants (although not eliminating the need for more baseload generating resources) -- and at the same time requiring additional natural gas plants to be built to provide fast-response, dispatchable resources to accommodate the variable output aspects of wind power -- but to actually use these natural gas plants 50% less on an energy basis in the 20% scenario compared to a "no new wind" scenario. In other words, under a 20% wind energy scenario, you build more natural gas plants to have the dispatchable resource available when needed -- but by using 50% less energy from natural gas generation, the 20% wind energy more than pays for itself by reducing natural gas prices and saving consumers billions of dollars over the study period: www.20percentwind.org

4) In the chart, where "acreage" footprints for several generating technologies are presented, the data shown is highly misleading. For one, the data on the coal plant indicates nothing about the massive land area impacts from mining of coal or the transportation of coal by rail or other means, much less the new land use impacts from carbon storage. Nor do these figures account for the fact that wind projects use less than 5% of the total land footprint of wind projects, allowing land owners to continue using the land for animal grazing or crops -- they essentially reap two benefits, or two crops from the land where they reaped only one below. The land use figures presented are therefore very one-dimensional and misleading.

The need for more coal power in this country is certainly a valid and important debate / decision our country will need to address, but it is important to recognize the significant and growing contribution of wind energy as a mainstream generating resource, and to provide accurate and valid information on wind power if it is to be considered as part of that debate.

Jeff Anthony
American Wind Energy Association