Laurence Brahm ("The great green grid", November 28) promotes a massive push by China to invest in so-called "green" energy - including industrial wind energy (IWE) and solar photovoltaics (PV) - to reduce coal use and pollution.
There is globally a crucial need to phase out fossil power and control carbon emissions, but IWE is not part of a sensible solution to climate change. "Free and green" energy is an attractive idea, but, as is being shown worldwide, IWE is not free and not particularly green.
The main problem is that it is not dispatchable ("on demand"), and without efficient, large-scale energy storage (which doesn't exist), can't replace conventional generation from fossil, hydroelectric and nuclear sources.
This isn't "a technological issue that can be addressed through finance and investment", as Brahm says.
Massive green-energy subsidies were legislated in Ontario, Canada. The result, detailed in a 2011 Ontario auditor general report, was a giant boondoggle, with subsidies going to pay other jurisdictions to take excess power when the wind is blowing hard and to generate "windfall" profits for the industry at ratepayers' expense.
More importantly, the billions of dollars squandered on "big wind" did little to reduce carbon emissions.