> Wind might be able to handle that load, but the environmental cost of wind energy is still poorly studied.

Wind generation has minimal environmental costs (it requires no fuel, kills less birds than buildings and cats each year, and also requires no water as opposed to coal and nuclear plants):

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewa...

http://energy.gov/eere/wind/environmental-impacts-and-siting...

> If we want to replace a stable constant base load plant, we need something that can offer the same guarantees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/eos-utility-scale-battery-st... (utility scale battery storage already cost competitive with natural gas in 2013)

I think the environmental cost people wonder about for wind is regarding Newton's third law. If we harness the wind, what is the effect on the rest of the system?

Do the math: how deep is the atmosphere, and how much of it does wind power generation affect? Most likely substantially less than skyscrapers alone, let alone the rest of cities.

yes, someone should in fact do the math!

e.g. I vaguely remember some factoid about how some significant amount of top-soil in the Amazon rain forest is attributed to top-soil/sand from Africa? Also, I just googled "deforestation affect wind" and got some interesting results.

Trillions of tree's blowing in the wind hasn't seemed to cause much issue.

so we need wind harvester's which approximate trees? then we can chop down some existing trees in windy spots and drop those in?

otherwise, we need a bit more study..

I think you misunderstood my comment. The original comment was asking about the concern of wind turbines stopping the wind and what affect that would have on the environment. I was pointing out the fact that tree's currently do the same thing, only we have trillions of tree's compared to thousands of turbines.

In Denmark we sell our wind power to Norway when there is too much and buy it back when there is no wind. How can that be you might ask! The Norwegians are a clever bunch you see - they pump water when electricity is cheap and let it run backwards when the price is high. With dams holding back two years of water flow surely you are in a position to do the same.