Does Wind Power…Provide enough power?

Well it seems as though it can. The largest wind turbine has recently been built in Germany and the power generated is astonishing. This one generator can power over 35,000 homes and as technology progresses they will become larger and more efficient. In less than 10 years I estimate there will be a wind turbine that could power over 100,000 homes.

Does Wind Power…have an answer to its intermittent failures.

Unfortunately relying on mother nature to provide a gentle breeze 365 days a year is not a fool-proof strategy. That is why wind power will only ever be part of the solution. However these intermittent failures are generally grossly misreported and are by no means are wind turbines as unreliable as may of been reported. The major factor behind the intermittent failures comes mostly from the placement of the wind turbines which is becoming increasingly more accurate.

Does Wind Power…Make economical sense.

Compared to coal power, probably not. Compared to nuclear power, probably not. But it would be almost impossible for any environmentally safe energy provider to compete economically with these options (and no I don’t support a carbon tax). But in terms of cost per unit of energy produced that number is coming down every year. Whilst it will be always more expensive, environmentally it will make economic sense in around a decade.

What I think doesn’t really matter its what our politicians think. Economically coal will be the best option to produce electricity for at least another century, but the arguments for wind power grow stronger every day.

Largest Wind Power Turbine

This record goes to the Enercon E-126 Turbine. The turbine is located in Emden, Germany and has comes with some pretty impressive numbers. The diameter of the blades is 126M (416 feet) and it can produce 6+ megawatts (enough to power 5000 homes).

Largest Wind Power Farm

Horse Hollow in Texas, USA is currently the worlds largest wind farm. The farm has 421 turbines spread over 47,000 acres of land which generate a total capacity of 735 megawatts.

Largest Wind Power Producer (Gross production)

Surprisingly the world’s biggest polluter is also the largest producer of wind power. The US produced (in 2008) 25.2 gigawatts of wind powered electricity which is roughly 20.8% of the worlds total output.

Largest Wind Power Producer (% of overall production)

The pioneers of wind power so far, Denmark produces over 20% of its energy needs from wind farms. Spain is a distant second with around 15% of its power provided by wind turbines.

There you go a few surprises there when it comes to, Largest Wind Power.

Noisy

The actual noise emitted by a wind turbine is generally only audible for a few hundred yards except under very rare topographical conditions.

Visually Unappealing

The aesthetics of the wind turbines is completely related to the individual. Many people (such as myself) find the look of wind turbines rather inspiring but that is just my personal preference. Many people see wind turbines as blights on the natural landscape and rather ugly. Either way a case against wind power, would not, and should not come down to how they look.

Kills large number of birds

It is true that wind turbines are responsible for a number of bird deaths. However the number being reported is greatly exaggerated and not significant if compared to other sources. If you compare the number of bird deaths from a wind turbine to lattice-type communication towers the numbers would pale in significance.

Threat to Bio-Diversity

Wind turbines could pose a threat to local bio-diversity. But in most cases environmental impact studies are carried out to ensure the threat is minimal and turbines are usually placed in low impact areas such as farmlands and in the ocean. In addition to that the threat of the fossil fuel industry is far greater on universal biodiversity than wind power could ever be.

Reliability

The reliability of wind turbines has always been a contentious point. Opponents of wind power often claim erroneously that, as an “intermittent generator”, wind power cannot be run as base-load to replace coal-fired power stations and cannot contribute to peak demand without expensive dedicated long-term storage. Since no-one is proposing to run a whole electricity grid on wind power alone, these claims are simplistic. Wind power can reliably power a large percentage of any nations energy needs.

To think in the current climate (pun intended) there would be such ferocious attacks on a cheap, clean and reliable energy source would be funny if it was not so serious. I theorise that traditional energy providers are setting up and funding such groups to protect the interests of their respective industries.