Suppose we define a banker as someone who facilitates the saving and exploitation of saved money in a manner that benefits the short and long-term community requirements.

The problem is that what you just described is not a Bank - it's a "Credit Union", or "Deposit Taker" (as they used to be called here in the UK).

If all Banks did was take in savings and lend them on, then there would be no "new" money = credit, and no development, either.

Banks create credit as a multiple of their capital base - essentially their Equity.

And doing so does indeed involve risk.

The problem has been that banks have been "outsourcing" that risk to a "shadow banking system" of investors through the mechanisms of securitisation, credit derivatives, credit insurance, and toxic mixtures of all three.

Now that the capital provided opaquely by these investors has gone, it's only governments who can replace it.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

2 - the study I quote only uses data up to 2006, so the boom in solar over the past 2 years is probably not visible in these graphs.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

(For a look at earlier situations on the wind market, see for example 1999 and 1998.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

On the day we dedicated the new wind tunnel, there was enough wind in Schleswig-Holstein that some 120% of the entire Land's energy came from wind.  The rest was either exported or dumped, because the grid is not yet reinforced.  In a sane future, north Germany would have exported southwards a huge slice of the country's needs.  What happened last week was not an anomaly.

Grid balancing with the addition of other technologies, both future renewables and existing plant, is not magic.  Rather, the new paradigm of grid management using existing technology goes up against entrenched archaic views, hence Australia's "25%" number, which comes out of thin air.

The entire Spain has been over 100%, as has Denmark.  This does not mean that wind alone is a solution, for there are times when there is no wind.  But such occurrences point out that we're not talking about technical problems here.

In terms of cost, should we check wind v. natural gas in a few years, since every wind turbine that has paid its debt produces electricity for about a cent and a half... for the next 15 years.

The intermittency argument is a sham red herring from the opposition, period.  No one intends to live with existing grids into the future, because smart grids and cross-border wheeling have already proven themselves.  The E.ons of the world just need a bit of prodding as it were... with some firebrands if necessary.

ferchrissake, there are wind turbines which can black start.

Wind reinforces the grid.  Wind minimizes voltage fluctuations.  Wind diminishes transmission losses.

And wind keeps both local and international economies humming, including all levels of real jobs, from the truck drivers and service techs to the data crunchers to bankers and lawyers.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

20% is what you can do with only minor tweaking of the network. But it's possible to go much higher if you invest a bit more in the grid. This has to be one of the silliest arguments against wind when it's only providing 1-3% of electricity.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes