This story has been edited to make it clearer that the analysis relates to US wind rather than European wind and to clarify the problem with excess generation at night. I also added an Item 10.

I think we think we know more about wind-power than we do. These are a few things that I have recently discovered about wind that make me think that plunging headlong into electricity is not necessarily a good idea. At this point, we don't seem to have a plan that does much more than address wind turbines themselves.

I should make it clear that this discussion relates to US wind power, not European wind power. Many of the issues directly or indirectly relate to the fact the US is facing a multi-faceted problem--lack of wind turbines, needed grid upgrades, and lack of electrical storage. In a time of financial problems, the price of such a big change makes it difficult to tackle all these problems on the necessary scale at once. If we only add wind turbines, and make minimal upgrades in storage and transmission, the change is still likely to still be expensive and will likely leave us with the need for large subsidies. Without extensive grid upgrades and electrical storage changes, wind generated electricity will continue to play only a supporting role, acting mostly as a fuel substitute.

Europe has been dealing with this issue longer and has better addressed the wind transmission and storage issue, so it is in better shape in this regard. Jerome Guillet has prepared a write-up focusing more on the European perspective.

The Obama-Biden comprehensive a New Energy for America Plan is designed to:

1. Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
2. Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
3. Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
4. Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
5. Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050

The Obama energy agenda focuses on - and these are not mutually exclusive - efficiency, electrification, and the promotion of alternative energy resources. Its five main goals are set up in a way so that success in any one of the five individual areas will reinforce the other 4, helping the overall agenda achieve success. For example, creating 25% of the U.S. electricity production from renewable resources (goal #4) will aid in decreasing the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% (goal #5).

The energy agenda is a welcomed change showing a future outlook that is based, at least to some [small] extent, on the physical realities of the natural resource world. However, from the perspective of net energy, some potential problems do exist. My goal here is to discuss some possible shortcomings of the new administrations energy agenda from the perspective of net energy.

One of the considerable differences between the ongoing financial problems of the world, and the coming energy crisis lies in the nature of the commodity of concern. In the first case the problem focuses around money, though not really the physical and tangible cash that one uses less and less to pay for groceries, the rent, or the occasional book. The US has already transitioned to a point that more than half the time we use credit and debit cards to pay the bill. (The quote is from a year ago)

As debit card and credit card purchases become increasingly popular, check and cash payments continue to lose out. These traditional payment methods now account for less than half of all transactions, and a recent rule change by the Federal Reserve Board should tilt the balance even further away from paper transactions and toward plastic payments.

As a result, for the vast majority of us who do not keep our money in the mattress, financial solvency and insolvency is defined by electronic statements about the nature of our accounts, without there being a pile of gold sitting in the bank to define it. And, when the banks and other companies holding such accounts get into trouble, loans can and have been arranged for them, that are similarly electronic transactions, without large trucks pulling up at either Fort Knox, where 147.3 million ounces currently sit, or to the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, that holds about 216 million ounces. Rather the transactions occur electronically, and there is relatively little need for the physical presence of the cash.

Contrast that with the realities of an energy crisis. We cannot heat our homes with the promises of oil, or the electronic transfer of ownership of fragments of a tanker load making its way from Ras Tanura to the Gulf ports. We need the physical presence of the oil, natural gas or wood that we will consume. When we run out, we need to get some more.

Every few years the UK Department of Trade and Industry, now Department of Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, publish a chart of the nation's energy flows. Here's the most recently published chart based on 2007 data:

Click for .pdf

It's a nice, high level overview of energy in the UK illustrating the flow of primary fuels from the point at which they become available from home production or imports (on the left) to their eventual final uses (on the right). Flows at the bottom represent exports, conversion losses and energy industry and non-energy use. The yellow blocks represent transformation (power stations and refineries).