landscapes and is inefficient. A wind farm near Malmo, Sweden.

By MARK LANDLER

Breezes don’t always blow, but they supply energy in 26 nations.

MALMO, Sweden - Steadying himself on the heaving foredeck of an inspection ship, his face flecked by spray, Arne Floderus pronounced it a good day for his offshore wind farm.
A 50-kilometer-an-hour wind was twirling the fingerlike blades of a turbine 115 meters above his head.
Around him, a field of turbines rotated in a synchronized ballet that, when fully connected to an electrical grid, would generate enough power to light 60,000 nearby houses.
“We’ve created a new landmark,” said Mr. Floderus, the project manager of the $280 million wind park, one of the world’s largest, which was built by the Swedish power company Vattenfall.
The park, in a shallow sound between Sweden and Denmark, testifies to the remarkable rise of wind energy - no longer a quirky alternative favored by environmentalists in Denmark and Germany, but a mainstream power source in 26 nations .
Yet Sweden’s gleaming wind park near Malmo has entered service at a time when wind energy is coming under sharper scrutiny, not just from neighbors, who complain that the towers disrupt the landscape, but from energy experts who question its reliability as a source of power.
For a start, the wind does not blow all the time.
When it does, it does not necessarily do so during periods of high demand for electricity.
Moreover, to capture the best breezes, wind farms are often built far from where the demand for electricity is highest.
The power they generate must then be carried over long distances on high-voltage lines .
In Denmark, which pioneered wind energy in Europe, construction of wind farms has stagnated in recent years.
The Danes export much of their wind-generated electricity to Norway and Sweden because it comes in unpredictable surges that often outstrip demand.
As wind energy has matured as an industry, its image has changed - from a clean, even elegant, alternative to fossil fuels to a renewable energy source with advantages and drawbacks, like any other.
“The environmental benefits of wind are not as great as its champions claim,” said Euan C. Blauvelt, research director of ABS Energy Research, an independent market research firm in London.
“You’ve still got to have backup sources of power, like coal-fired plants.
” Mr. Blauvelt publishes an annual report on wind energy in which he discusses its flaws.
People in the industry would accuse him of propagating myths, he said.
Now, the criticism is more tempered.
“One of the big problems with wind is that people tend to get hyped up about it, very emotional,” Mr. Blauvelt said.
“The difference is that the arguments are becoming more rational.
” Mr. Blauvelt estimates that the industry is adding capacity at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 26.
3 percent.
That is faster than hydroelectric power in its early days .
The United States added more generating capacity in 2006 than any year on record.
With 11,575 megawatts, the United States is the world’s third largest wind country, after Germany and Spain, and it is adding more capacity than any other.
Among new countries with significant wind capacity are Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands.
“What we’re seeing is a second wave of countries, which are starting to invest more heavily,” said Christian Kjaer, the chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association in Brussels.
He said wind energy would benefit from two parallel trends: rising oil prices and a global push to tax carbon-dioxide emissions.
“It’s a very good way of hedging against volatile oil prices and potentially volatile carbon costs,” Mr. Kjaer said.
In Germany, where 20,000 wind turbines generate 5 percent of the electricity, advocates say wind will be critical to meeting the government’s goal of generating at least 20 percent of all power from renewable methods by 2020. But the industry’s growth is slowing for a variety of reasons.
Germany is running out of places to put the turbines because of restrictions on the location and height of the devices.
And rising raw material prices are making wind farms more expensive to build.
And while Swedes staunchly support wind energy, they are as susceptible to local opposition as people elsewhere.
For years, residents opposed the wind farm near Malmo.