By unleashing human ingenuity, the world can solve its energy woes. Wind power won’t do it.
To power the future, many commentators today exhort us to buy lots of “green energy”—chiefly solar panels and wind turbines. They claim this is a way to avoid running out of fossil fuel, to create “green jobs” and greater energy security, and to respond to global warming. However, these arguments mostly fail on closer inspection.
We have long been fearful of our energy supply running out. In 1865, popular opinion—led by some of the world’s most esteemed scientists—held that Britain’s coal reserves would soon become exhausted.
The doomsayers underestimated human ingenuity. They could not envisage that there would be a fruitful search for more effective ways to extract, use, and transport coal and to find other energy sources. (Bjorn Lomborg, Newsweek)
People moved on from wind centuries ago simply because it wasn’t very useful, not because they preferred to pay for energy rather than harvest “free” wind power.
