This article and the naysayers of wind power , including the deluded 'professors' referenced in this article who should know better (one does wonder who they are being sponsored by?) completely misses the point :
1) Coal and oil WILL run out or become economically untenable within 50 years
2) Wind cannot meet our energy needs on its own, this is stating the bleedin' obvious - doh
3) Nuclear fission needs to be used in the short term - yes, stating the bleedin' obvious again
But, and this is the point, at some point, *nuclear fusion* will go online. When this happens, and it will happen, it may take 40 years, it may take 60, it may take 100, mankind can simply pull down and recycle all those turbines that are so upsetting to you. The point of minimizing nuclear fission in the interim years (with a massive investment in renewables) is to minimize the huge amount of very dangerous waste that we will have to deal with, which
a) can poison the environment for thousands of years
b) doesn't seem to have any option on the table for safe storage
c) represents a massive terrorism and proliferation threat
d) is enormously expensive, the true costs not being factored into the price of electricity quoted for it - for example - how much per Kwh were the generators costing the Japanese public up to the point of the tsunami? And how much retrospectively did those Kwh's cost, once the tsunami costs to the state (paid for by taxes by the public) are taken into account? It will be astronomically higher than wind power. And in Britain, does the proportion of our taxes that go to the ongoing maintenance of Sellafield and other decomissioning projects, which we'll be paying for for 50 years, ever get added to the quoted cost of nuclear fission energy? I don't think so! When that is factored in, it becomes ridiculously expensive.
However, nuclear fission in smaller doses (no pun intended) *is* needed for the next 50 years simply because the wind turbines and other renewables are not going to keep up with the planet's energy demands. But this is why - doh - we need to massively invest in renwables UP TO THE POINT where nuclear fusion comes online - the wind turbines will become obsolete at this point, but they will have done their job admirably which is to reduce massively the nuclear fission toxic waste legacy that future generations will have to deal with. And the nuclear fission plants will become obsolete at this point as well, so it's a win-win scenario.