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On the Denmark experience with wind-based generation, many people don't know that the Danish energy program contains a lot of the things advocated by the darling of the “renewable energy” crowd, Amory Lovins (Amorous Loving). Things like cogeneration, use of “micropower” (really a bunch of little power sources burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases), windmills, solar, etc. The result? The highest per-capita costs for electricity among the European nations, the highest GHG and other pollutant emissions per capita, and net electricity imports from places like Norway (hydropower) and France (80% nuclear). In fact, if it were not for the availability of Norwegian hydropower and pumped storage, the Danish wind generation would be even less reliable than it is now. But what they can do is when wind is available, they export power to Norway, which stores it in pumped storage reservoirs. When wind is not available, the Danes import electricity from Norway and France. Not very practical on a wide scale, although if you're a small nation without a large economy and not geographically dispersed, such niche sources might be able to contribute in a minor way to your energy needs.