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If we base our judgment on the amount of articles that can be found on wind power in the french press, and the quotation of this source of energy as soon as renewable energies are discussed, it is quite tempting to consider that, for us French, there lies a major potential compared to those of other renewable energies, or compared to our present energy consumption in general.
Now what do the figures say ?
If we look at the most widely used renewable energy in the world, it owes nothing to high technology, since it consists in.....wood, that is the first source of energy that our ancestors started to use 500.000 years ago (solid biomass today also comprises wood waste, straw, etc).
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But an important statement has to be made, still : wood is not necessarily a renewable energy ! Indeed, by definition a renewable energy is an energy which is...renewed. Well, at the present rate of consumption, wood is only partially renewed, and the fraction of the wood that is burnt - and that had to be logged - that is not renewed is called....deforestation.
There is thus a significant - but probably unknown - proportion of the wood consumed which does not fit in the "renewable" category, and which should not appear in the above chart. Still, even the truly renewable fraction of the wood consumed gets the first rank in the overall renewable total.
There are other energy sources that can be found in the "renewable" category whereas the "renewable" aspect can be discussed. For example, it is frequent to put in the "renewable" total the energy obtained from the combustion of municipal waste. Producing waste is definitely closely bound to the very existence of life, and as long as there will be men there will be waste. But part of this waste, today, is composed of plastic (roughly 20%), which is oil transformed into something else. It is probably debatable to consider that this part - which contributes for a large amount to the energy produced by incinerators - is really where it should be when in the "renewable" category !
The same remarks applies to biofuels, which require, to be manufactured, a non negligible amount of fossil fuel, certain lines even having a negative net output (it then requires more than one litre of oil to produce one litre of biofuel). Hopefully all lines are not such, but even in the favourable cases it still requires a fraction of litre of oil - not renewable - to get a litre of biofuel. So, renewable, or not ... ?
If, forgetting these nomenclature issues, which are in fact fundamental debates (it is quite frequent to have a debate on notions or objects that have not been previously defined !), we get back to our "ranking" of renewable sources by present contribution, after wood we find hydroelectricity, which is definitely 100% renewable, and which produces amounts that are an order of magnitude over those produced by all the other sources today, wood excepted.
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It is quite easy to note, on the chart of the top of the page, that wind power, today, weights less than 0,1% of the world renewable total, and roughly 0,02% of the world energy consumption : even a multiplication by 100 of the output of this source is not enough to substitute all oil and coal presently consumed !
One will object, and will be right to do so, that a weak figure today does not necessarily condemn to a weak figure tomorrow. The argument is perfectly sound ; before representing 40% of the world energy consumption, there has been a time when oil represented 0%. Whether wind power can concur to a large fraction of the energy consumption - and allow to save a large amount of greenhouse gases emissions - of an occidental country is discussed in detail for France elsewhere on this site, and I discuss this further below : we'd better investigate also other "solutions" !
If we now take a close look at the french case, we do not find any more a significant contribution of this way to "produce" energy in the renewable total.
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We note on this chart that wind power is the last renewable source in France today, with 0,1% of the renewable total (et 0,01% of the overall energy consumption in France) ; wind power hence provides, in my country, a share of the total which is very close to what it is for the world (0,13%, see top table of the page), and all the same negligible for the time being.
It is then easy to see that multiplying the french number of windmills by 100, what is now the objective of the french government (to go from 100 to 10.000 MW of installed power), will bring wind power to the level of solid waste today, and will allow to get roughly 1% of the total present energy supply, or 10% of the present renewable total. It will require - already - roughly 5.000 machines, which means that windmills will become frequent elements of the landscape in windy places (as frequent as high voltage lines, let's say).
There is no technical obstacle to do so, and if it can be done without an increase in the greenhouse gases emissions (in France it is not such an easy win, see why on this page), it's always good to take, but even a multiplication by 100 of wind power will not change much to the problem of energy supply in the future if we wish to divide the greenhouse gases emissions by 4 (in France) and/or avoid future oil shocks.
The "world champions" of wind power that Germany and Denmark are have obtained, respectively, 0,1% and 1,3% of their final energy consumption through this way in 1999 (source IEA). In Denmark, which probably has one of the highest proportion of wind power in the "mix", the energy consumption has risen, from 1990 to 1999, of .... 1,3% per year on average. Ten years of efforts in wind power have just been able to offset one year of increase of the consumption, and in order to achieve this 1,3%, a couple of machines are necessary ! (see below).
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On the grounds of facts, windpower objectively occupies an excessive place in the french papers today in regard of its potential, and this assertion is probably true for a large number of countries in the world.