The load factor of a windfarm is about 30% of it's rated capacity - that's not the same as saying they only generate 30% of the time. Very different statements.
Given we live in country with a pretty strong grid, the lack of wind in any one location is less of a problem than you might think. One of the people who did some of the statistical studies on that works for one of my colleagues.
Nuclear does base load very well, but is not so good at coping with fluctuating demand. It is unlikely to be the answer without storage or fast response generation.
Electricity (or at least energy from electrical sources) can be stored - it's just expensive at present (it may always be so).
Hydro can be both storage and fast response (j_me - not enough for what you want to do yet if I recall - and not that much potential with our small hills).
Interconnecting to a wider area (Europe, Scandinavia) has advantages as our high levels of wind resource might complement French nuclear and Alpine / Scandinavian hydro potential quite nicely.
If we don't think big like that, the south east (where they consume vast amount of power in relative terms, but have little energy resource - hot air perhaps?) is in trouble.
These are thoughts and facts, I don't know the answers - but then no one else does either (that last one was a fact).
Of course every one is qualified to say whether they like the look of something or whether they care about something, but there are a few people on here in and around the industry and who actually understand it - listen to them and you may learn something.
