Why is the wind generator at codrington not working at full capacity?

Question

And why is the federal govt pushing Nuclear when they are not usuing the wind generator effectivly

The turbines are turned off on windy days, and the facility seems too small for the size of the whole project.
Why are we only playing at wind energy?

Answer 1

The Wind farm is not operating at full capacity because the wind does not blow at full strength all the time, i think its about an average of 35% or less.

The reason that the fed government is pushing Nuclear power is because they want to cut down on greenhouse gases and
alternative energy cannot nearly fill our energy need.
I mean c'mon.... the codrington farm takes up 250 hectares to produce 18.2 Megawatts of electrical power!! And that is in the perfect position, not everywhere has wind blowing strong enough to produce electricity.

Solar is promising but it costs millions of dollars and many hectares for farms that power only a few thousand homes, plus the sun does not shine everyday.

Hydroelectric power is one of the most widely used alternative energy sources and does produce a usable amount of power but it requires that you have a large river and a mountain range so you can dam it and harness the energy.
Even after you have done this the environmental impact can be greater than installing a small coal fired plant that can produce the same amount of electricity.

A nuclear power plant, by comparison, takes up very little space, does not emit greenhouse gases and a 1GW reactor produces enough energy to power 750,000 homes!
There were only 7,810,352 in 2002 meaning that only 11 nuclear power plants at 1GW ea need to be built to supply all the homes in Australia!!!
Granted you need a few more for businesses and factories but you can see why it such an attractive solution.

Even the price isn't too bad, a 1GW nuclear reactor costs 1.5 billion dollars but has the capacity to produce more than 950 million dollars worth of electricity a year, in the second year of operation it has paid for itself and any maintenance, fuel, fuel processing and workers plus more than 200 Million dollars worth of revenue and 700 million dollars each year after that!