I can't get excited about wind. What nobody tells you is the amount of nameplate capacity, aka full blast power, and how many hours a year or per day that fan actually PRODUCES full power.
To replace coal, you'd have to cover entire regions (entire states) with fans, and even if you do that, what happens if there's no wind and its 40 below, or no wind and it's 100?
As long as you've got the water for the year, hydropower is clean and much more reliable.
That all might change with power STORAGE technology to buffer supplhy with demand, but for now, I'm okay if coal and nukes do the work of base load power. Not so much natural gas, that's important as a chemical process catalyst as well as a direct heat source in domestic and small scale -- save the gas for chemistry and cooking, please.
