Of course, the same folks have no objections whatsoever to offshore drilling.
e.g.
- Often wind typically need to be subsidised heavily by the government and are not cost effective over its lifetime.
- Typically wind needs to be backed up by fossil fuel or nuclear power generators as it is unreliable or you need to buy capacity from elsewhere.
I won't pretend to know enough to state whether they are valid arguments or not. But they are potentially much stronger arguments against wind power than the others frequently made.
Have you looked at the government subsidies for nuclear in the UK and the massive lifetime cost? In terms of offshore wind - initially it was subsidized to get it up and running - but now it's established those have dropped and dropped.
> Typically wind needs to be backed up by fossil fuel or nuclear power generators as it is unreliable or you need to buy capacity from elsewhere.
Sure - but no-one is claiming 100% wind is the target - total strawman argument. The UK goverments own net zero plan actually still includes gas generation!
One of the more bonkers arguments in the UK was when there was a massive fossil fuel price shock a couple of years ago due to wars and rising global demand - the fossil fuel lobby blamed rewnewables for the high prices!
The need for backup is not an argument against wind in itself. But it is important to consider the full system costs of wind generation, which includes the backup costs as well as the additional transmission infrastructure.