Yay windmills.
I notice that Greenpeace suggests wind energy prominently in their plans for a clean future. So... Can we get rid of gas energy plants and replace them with windmills? Let's see.
Your average STEG-type energy plant, such as the one planned in Diemen in the Netherlands (Unit 34), can produce at the same time 500 megawatts of electricity and an additional 250 megawatts of heat, which is piped to people's homes. Keep in mind that there's also Unit 33 at that site, which does 266 MW electrical, 180 MW thermal. Year-round, all-weather.
For some reason, I've never been able to get a very clear answer to the question: "How much power does a wind turbine produce?" Partly due, no doubt, to the wind being inconveniently variable. We should invent better wind. Still, I've found a web page. It has figures on it. I'll use them.
According to HowStuffWorks, a wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 80m. can produce 2.5 megawatts (and what a pleasure it is to work with a unit where you can actually convert kilo to mega by dividing by 1000, without all the "commercial" fluff, but I digress).
So you would need two hundred wind turbines with an 80m rotor to replace one single STEG plant. That's assuming that the windmills would always produce their maximum output, which they don't. It also ignores the 250 MW of heat, which would be another hundred or so windmills.
There would hardly be any place left to live anymore, I think.
Refs:
- http://www.nuon.com/nl/het-bedrijf/kernactiviteiten/opwekken-energie/centrales/diemen34.jsp
- http://science.howstuffworks.com/wind-power4.htm